Smart Materials and Technical Textiles!

At the start of year ten, within our textiles lessons, we were set a task to design a product incorporating the use of smart materials and technical textiles. We were given a design brief explaining that the product had to be a container using as many smart materials as it could. It had to be innovative, functional and commercially viable suiting a target audience of our choice.

After designing and modelling our products we were given the opportunity to take part in a Dragons Den competition within the school competing with the other GCSE students in our class being judged by Ben Haddon, a representative from EDT and our head teacher, Mr Keay. Julie Soulsby and Claire Brown managed to win this getting themselves a prize of £25 each. They were overwhelmed but at this point we were quite disappointed that it wasn’t us.

Several months later, having completely forgotten about even entering the competition, we got an e-mail that we never expected getting. We had been short listed and put through to the finals of the Drapers competition. Out of over 250 entries within the key stage 4 category, two out the three finalists were from Hetton School. What an achievement!

Not only were we short listed, but the finals were in London offering a prize of a bursary of up to £500, a red letter day of your choice such as scuba diving or parachuting and an outstanding trip to London. Exciting!

The day came and on the 22nd of November 2011, we travelled to London. It was about 10.30am and we were boarding the train along with Miss Blackie and Mrs Gladstone. After about 4 hours on the train, we reached Kings Cross station where we soon after caught the Tube. Four stops later, we were out of the station standing at the bank of England, right in the centre of the financial district of the city.

Next was the mission to find the Drapers Hall. This was were the Kings Speech had previously been filmed and we were about to go to the awards ceremony which was taking place there. Luxury. Walking up Threadneedle Street and there it was. Extremely large, very rich looking and amazingly presented. We had finally arrived.

Shortly after getting there we were soon rushed off our feet. We were each given a presentation board which was very plain and bland and it was down to us to make it extremely presentable and show off our work making it look outstanding. Our work was looking brilliant alongside the other finalists but we had to look presentable to go with it. Off we went to explore the building and change into our uniform. This was it, we were representing the school and it was down to us to do it well. Shirts tucked in, ties on, hair brushed and away we went.

 

We were ready to win! | Read More |