Tomorrow’s inventors

The inventors of tomorrow were in St Andrews today as part of a national competition for primary school children across Scotland.

Seventy-five keen young scientists gathered at the University of St Andrews for the day to participate in the Fife regional final of the Tomorrow’s Inventors competition.

The initiative, organised by Careers Scotland, invites primary school children to invent a new product or service and develop it into something that can go into the marketplace.

Pupils from fifteen Primary Schools across Fife were competing for a cheque for £200 and one of three places at the National Final in Glasgow in June. The Primary six and seven pupils were given the challenge to develop an innovative solution for one of five scenarios. The choices were: an aid for disabled people, a new toy or game, something that uses the weather, an invention for travel or an aid for the classroom.

Teams were asked to make a working model of their invention and give a one minute presentation to judges at the end of the day -a panel of experts was available to teams throughout the day. The panel included the University’s Dr Bruce Sinclair (School of Physics and Astronomy) and Gary Thomson (Careers Service), as well as Pamela Stevenson (Scottish Enterprise Fife) and Joe Murphy (Inventors Advisory Service for Scotland)

The winning teams will go forward to the National Final at Glasgow Science Centre on 14th June.

ENDS

Issued by Beattie Media On behalf of the University of St Andrews Contact Gayle Cook, Press Officer on 01334 467227 / 462529, mobile 07900 050 103, or email gec3@st- andrews.ac.uk Ref: tomorrows inventors 260405.doc View the latest University press releases at http://www.st- andrews.ac.uk