A group of young engineers at an Aberystwyth secondary school have teamed up with a local business and picked up a national award.

An early start was needed last Friday when five Year12 student engineers and accompanying staff headed to Swansea University for the culmination of five months of hard work.

It was the Engineering Education Scheme Wales presentations and the last chance for 61 teams from South and Mid Wales to impress the judges with their work.

Penglais’s team worked with Aberystwyth’s very own high tech engineering company, Aber Instruments.

The company set a design brief that required the design, construction and control mechanisms for an automatic dosing device for use in calibrating the company’s fermentation monitors.

The team worked intensively to take early concepts through CAD, 3D printing, electronic engineering, coding and testing to build the final device. The device could be controlled through a simple webpage to add small, accurately weighed doses of dried yeast into a solution. This was done using a small impeller and the weight was monitored via a load cell to achieve the correct additions.

The team set out their work in the Great Hall on the Bay Campus at the university where they had to present to the judges along with other interested visitors.

At the end of a demanding day the prizes were announced in an impressive ceremony.

The Penglais team were rewarded with the award for ‘The Most Innovative Solution to the Project Set’ and £500, to be split between themselves and the Science Department.