Cumbria pupils celebrate their innovative engineering ideas

An awards and exhibition event was held on 19th June at University of Cumbria in Lancaster, which showcased and celebrated local school pupils across Cumbria for their engineering ideas submitted to the Primary Engineer annual UK STEM competition.

These pupils had taken part in a national competition, run by educational not-for-profit Primary Engineer, where they answered the question “If you were an engineer, what would you do?”. Pupils interview an engineer, learn how to think like an Engineer and are tasked with identifying a problem in the world around them and coming up with a creative solution to that problem.

Entries were then graded by local industry professionals before going to a regional judging panel were they picked two winners and two highly commended for each year group.

The highly commended and winning pupils were awarded trophies and framed certificates of their ideas, with 27 pupils from schools across Cumbria being celebrated.

Congratulations to all the pupils, including Year 6 pupil Millie from Croftlands Junior School, whose idea “S.A.M” stood out for the judges and won the special ‘Judges Award’. Her idea, which was inspired by her brother, is a Seizure Awareness Mattress (or S.A.M for short). It helps people with epilepsy by letting people know when they are having an epileptic fit.

“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

Primary Engineer Public Exhibitions and Award Ceremonies continue all over the UK through to July, with thousands of pupils engineering ideas being displayed for all to see. Find out more: https://leadersaward.com/exhibitions-and-events/