A STUDENT has been crowned the national winner of a competition after designing a helicopter for an aerospace, security and defence company.
Alice, aged 11, from Sherborne's Leweston School won the AW149 Livery Design Competition from Leonardo thanks to the creativity of her design.
For the competition, students aged between four and 11 was tasked with designing livery for the AW149, Leonardo’s latest generation multi-role helicopter, whilst sharing details of how their design would help it perform its role.
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The Leweston School pupil’s entry was noted for the striking helicopter she created with bright and bold colours that played a practical role in helping the helicopter perform its search and rescue mission – with distinctive green and blue to make it instantly recognisable and to ‘help speed up rescue missions’.
Competition winner Alice said: “I felt surprised, shocked and very very happy to win. I was over the moon, and it makes me want to design more things in the future!”
For her winning entry, Alice was awarded with £500 of book vouchers for her school and she was presented with a model of the Leonardo AW149 helicopter from STEM Ambassadors Jordan Goble and Charlea Boucher.
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Jordan and Charlea, who also delivered an engineering presentation to Alice and her classmates, said they were inspired by the school students’ ‘enthusiastic response’ as they explained that everything the children could see around them, from the toothbrush they use to the transport that got them to school, had been engineered.
Kirsten Le Poidevin, science teacher at Leweston School, said: “The students really enjoyed designing their AW149s. We had a very diverse set of entries, including a ‘Pet Rescue’ version. The students could not believe that someone from their school had actually won the competition!
“We really enjoyed Leonardo’s visit to the school and learned a lot about the diverse life of an engineer – I think we may have a few future engineers as a result. I am sure Alice’s model has taken pride of place at home and we look forward to purchasing some inspirational STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Maths) books with the vouchers Alice won for the school.”
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