Featherstone reaches final of Big Bang competition – EALING.NEWS – The Voice of Ealing 7 towns

Southall’s Featherstone High School has reached the finals of the Big Bang UK Young Scientists & Engineers Competition for dotFlow, which is a refreshable Braille display created by two Year 12 students, Mohammad and Nizar.

Schools across the UK took part in the annual competition, aimed at Years 10-12. Schools, including the finalists, will attend The Big Bang Fair at the NEC in Birmingham from 19-21 June 2024, where the winners will be announced. There are three prizes, with a £1,000 prize awarded to the Young Engineer, Young UK Scientist and Young Technologist.

The goal of the annual Big Bang Fair is to inspire young people to consider careers in STEM.

Phil McShane, Associate Director of The Big Bang Program said: “This year we had hundreds of young people enter over 300 projects in the competition and the standard of the projects was very high. The judges of the Big Bang Competition were extremely impressed by the creativity and innovation shown to solve the real-world challenges demonstrated by all the young people who took part.”

EALING.NEWS contacted Featherstone High School to find out more and spoke to Associate Assistant Principal Bianca Williams about what it means to enter and reach the finals.

Is this the first time the school has entered the competition?
Last year we had a student participate in this competition and he successfully reached the finals. They went on to win the LIYSF (London International Youth Science Forum) award for their project titled ResQDrone.

As part of this award, they received a fully funded place to attend LIYSF held at Imperial College London, this included a full 15 day residential programme.

What does it mean to be one of the finalists?
It is an incredible achievement for these students to be finalists in the Big Bang Competition, especially as it is nationally renowned. This speaks volumes for their ability to work well as a partnership, their dedication to their project and their willingness to take on new challenges. After they successfully entered and won 1st place in the Imperial Change-makers competition, this later inspired them to participate in the Big Bang competition. The Big Bang competition will give them the forum to share their amazing project with the rest of the world, where they will continue to work to create sustainable solutions for the visually impaired.

We are incredibly proud of them both and very inspired by their tenacity, drive and determination.