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The latest Mid Sussex STEM Challenge launched on Friday, October 13, with dozens of students learning about the exciting task before them.
The launch took place at Mid Sussex District Council's Council Chamber in Haywards Heath.
We spoke to Dr Jeremy Crooks who is in charge of judging and is helping with the design aspects of the project.
Transcript
00:00 My name's Gerevly Crooks and I'm kind of in charge of the judging of the competition
00:05 but also I'm helping in the design aspects of what the project will be all about
00:11 which is to build and customise and improve the lift so that it can carry
00:19 about half a kilo in weight which is about the weight of a normal tin of beans.
00:26 So what will happen is all the schools will get given this in flat pack form
00:32 and they have got pretty much a free opportunity to customise it as they will
00:40 as they're going to be given a budget of £250 each.
00:45 So they will have to go away and research things like the lift
00:50 which is so there will need to be a motor on the other side of that
00:55 blowing serious amounts of air and they'll also have to here provide thrust
01:07 which is a force to drive it along as well.
01:11 And also in addition to that they will need fins on it to steer the thing
01:17 and this will all happen at Bordhill Gardens on the 28th of June next year.
01:25 So they've got about nine months to get ready for the big race day that we will all have
01:32 and we'll all be there around a certain race track at Bordhill Gardens.
01:37 All the groups and the schools will have to do a presentation
01:41 so they'll be up on a form of a stage and they'll have to collate a PowerPoint presentation
01:48 and also we'll have a lot of judges there.
01:51 What they will do is they will go round and speak to the students on a table like this
01:58 but with where they will have prepared the, if you like, a presentation that the judges can analyse.
02:05 And we get professors from Sussex University, senior lecturers, it's quite a high level of judging
02:13 and I hope to get some hovercraft experts along as well.