
South West England pupil’s win big in national engineering competition
An awards and exhibition event was held on 27th June at the University of West of England in Bristol, which showcased and celebrated local school pupils across South West England 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 29 pupils from schools in the area being celebrated.


Congratulations to all the pupils, including Year 2 pupil Sabrina from Longwell Green Primary School, whose idea “Food Detector” stood out for the judges and won the special ‘Judges Award’. Her idea is fitted with sensors to detect dairy or gluten to help people like herself and her classmate who have food intolerances and allergies.

Every year University and Industry Partners of Primary Engineer select an idea to turn into a working Prototype from the previous year’s winning designs. The Reach-Up Wheelchair prototype was unveiled at the ceremony, brought to life by Thales, based on the idea of Sophie, from West Town Lane Academy.
“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/