EEECS to Bring Children’s Engineering Ideas to Life in Partnership with Primary Engineer
The School of EEECS will turn P7 pupil Sam’s solar panel idea into reality for our first prototype build under a new partnership between Queen’s University Belfast and Primary Engineer.
Queen’s University Belfast have entered into a new collaboration with Primary Engineer, a non-profit organisation which runs the national STEM competition ‘If you were an engineer what would you do?’ This competition encourages children and young people aged 3-19 to think like future engineers and come up with creative solutions to real-world problems.
The School of EEECS have selected one of the winning designs from regional submissions across Northern Ireland to turn into a prototype over the 2023/24 academic year. We have selected a design which involves a moving solar panel system that automatically adjusts based on the position of the sun.
This ambitious design was created by a talented Primary 7 pupil from St Patrick’s Primary School in Mullanaskea, Enniskillen. The young engineer, Sam, was inspired to create this design after working on a bird house which featured solar panels.
Beginning the Prototype
Kevin Fitzsimons, a final-year BEng student at EEECS, has selected Sam’s design to incorporate into his final-year dissertation project under the supervision of Dr Robert Best.
Over the course of the year, Kevin will be investigating the feasibility of moving solar panels to solve the problem of placement on properties which do not have a south-facing side to mount panels on. This project will develop a solution to move the panels over the pitch of a roof as per the design that Sam has created.
Kevin selected Sam’s idea as he is passionate about energy efficiency and could see that the novel approach would make this an interesting project to work on. The project also poses some challenges to overcome, including the scope around how we might showcase the model solution. We are investigating several approaches, such as the use of VR, as a means of demonstrating to Sam how the solar panels might operate in reality.
Visiting St Patrick’s Primary School, Mullanaskea
On 6 December, a team from EEECS had the pleasure of visiting St Patrick’s Primary School to meet with Sam and his classmates, along with their teachers Mrs Toal and Mr Dolan and their principal Dr O’Neill. This gave us an opportunity to chat to Sam to learn more about how he came up with the design and to invite his class to come to EEECS next year to see the prototype.
Callum Smith, a PhD candidate at EEECS, brought a Meta Quest 3 to let the pupils test out some of the latest VR technology. This showcased to the pupils the potential for how this technology could help them view Sam’s creation if we use VR to simulate the final model.
The School of EEECS would like to thank everyone at St Patrick’s Primary School for the warm welcome and hospitality on our visit – and a very special thanks to Sam’s grandmother for the delicious lunch she prepared for us before we left.
We are very much looking forward to welcoming the pupils and their teachers to EEECS next year when we have finished working on Sam’s prototype. By transforming a child’s vision into an academic research project and prototype, we hope to inspire a future generation of engineers and showcase the innovative mindset of pupils across Northern Ireland.
Nominate a School for Primary Engineer
If you would like to nominate a school to take part in the Primary Engineer STEM competition, you can do so here: https://www.primaryengineer.com/nominate/
During the competition, pupils are tasked with interviewing an engineer, where they get the opportunity to ask the questions that matter to them, before coming up with their own engineering ideas.
Media
For further information on this collaboration, please contact Dr Jonathan Browning and Dr Siofra Frost.