Astronaut praises Isle of Man pupil for space invention turned into a prototype by Isle of Man Chamber of Commerce

Eryn, from Kewaigue School in Isle of Man submitted her engineering idea to Primary Engineer’s annual UK STEM competition which asks pupils aged 3 –19 the question “If you were an engineer, what would you do?”. 

She was recognised as one of the Highly Commended in her year group at the Isle of Man award ceremony, one of 25 regional UK events, in 2024.  

Her creation, The Magnetic Coaster for Space, is centered around astronauts struggling to put their drink down when in space as their juice box would float away. Her solution to this was to design a concept for a magnetic coaster to keep their drink securely tethered. 

For the first time on the Isle of Man, a partner of Primary Engineer chose a pupil’s idea to build into a Prototype and to be revealed a year later at the regional awards ceremony. Swagelok, who is one of the companies in the ACE Committee (Awareness of Careers in Engineering), comprising of engineering companies in the Isle of Man Chamber of Commerce, selected this design to prototype because of Swagelok’s long history with space exploration.  

Melanie Beattie, HR Manager at Swagelok and ACE Committee Chair (Awareness of Careers in Engineering) said “We were excited to partner with Primary Engineer this year, on producing a prototype from the ‘If you were an engineer, what would you do?’ competition. We selected Eryn’s design as it was a very practical solution to a real space problem. Swagelok have a long and colourful history with product application in space exploration; including our parts featuring in the 1969 Apollo 9 Lunar Module moon landing in Rusty Schweickart’s breathing pack. Swagelok quick-connects were also used in systems on the Space Shuttle, Mars Rover and most currently, SpaceX! It therefore made a natural fit for us to try and bring Eryn’s design to life and further assist our astronaut friends. Our Operations Leading Hand – John Cairns, and our Engineering Manager Dave Parkes took on the project of bringing this to life. They decided the simplest way to do this would be to design the coaster in CAD and 3D print it to the desired specification. Shortly after completing this initial prototype of the space coaster, John came up with the brilliant idea of making a 3D printed juice box cage to also house the drink itself. This also meant that there would be no need to stick magnets to your drink each time you had one whilst chilling on the International Space Station as Eryn described. You could simply insert your new juice box into the cage frame and away you go! We also wanted to ensure this prototype exactly matched Eryn’s design vision and reached out to her teachers to verify her favourite colour which is cyan! The design was therefore finalised with a final print in this beautiful colour. We were then delighted to host Eryn and her class from Kewaigue School at Swagelok, not only for the unveiling of the Space Coaster, but also for a fun-filled morning of STEM learning and a plant tour. We had a great time talking to the children about what a prototype is, why it is important is product design and Eryn’s fabulous idea. We then presented Eryn with her prototype and passed it around the class for closer inspection, and is passed with cyan colours. It has been so much fun working on this prototype and being able to partner with a local primary school and Primary Engineer has truly been a world of fun! We love to see creative minds at work and hopefully help inspire the pipeline of future engineers.” 

The finished prototype was officially unveiled on 8th July at the Isle of Man regional award ceremony hosted at University College of Isle of Man. Eryn’s family attended the event saying “From our perspective as a parents, it’s been a great experience and incredible to see Eryn’s mind at work. As she’s gone along in the process, it’s been great to see her confidence grow to the point where she’s actively searching for problems to solve and improvements to her growing list of ideas. She had been telling me for some time about magnets and how she thought they could be used in zero gravity, so when she came up with the magnetic coaster idea, it was great as her parent to see in prototype form what was in her mind.”

Nicole Stott, a veteran Nasa Astronaut, left a special video message for Eryn at the award ceremony “Hi Eryn, I’m Nicole Stott, Astronaut, Aquanaut, engineer, artist, honorary Manx woman and most importantly a mum. And I was thrilled to hear the amazing news about the engineering idea that you submitted to Primary Engineer’s “If you were an engineer, what would you do? Competition. And that your magnetic coaster idea has been turned into a working prototype by Swagelok. I love that you were asked to imagine and think creatively about what kind of solutions you could design and build. As astronauts, we are always looking for simpler ways to make life easier in that floaty environment. So I just wanted to congratulate you on your awesome idea and to thank you for being an awesome crewmate here on spaceship Earth.” 

Eryn commented to say “When I was told that my design was going to be made into a real thing, I was surprised and very happy. I was inspired by N.A.S.A and I said to myself ” why don’t I make a magnetic coaster ?” I designed it a few times and was inspired. I felt very proud that a real astronaut sent me a message. I’d like to invent things to solve problems astronauts could have, especially on Mars.”

Read more about this prototype here: https://www.primaryengineer.com/tag/iompt25/

“If you were an Engineer, what would you do” is an annual, national competition free to enter for all 3-19 school pupils.  Entries are open now for 2025-2026 and schools can register now at www.leadersaward.com