Young engineers set sail for operation clean-up

Young Engineers - the national network of engineering clubs in schools and colleges - will be working with the Royal Navy on a unique new project to challenge students’ problem-solving skills and put them to the test in a simulated naval exercise. Operation Clean-up is the mission set for students from all over the UK competing in the Royal Navy Challenge 2004 that involves a Navy frigate, HMS MARLBOROUGH. In a fictional but realistic scenario, the ship is patrolling the South China Seas on the lookout for drugs smugglers. The frigate is in hot pursuit of a traffickers’ ship when its target enters a lagoon and runs aground, leaking hundreds of tonnes of oil. This is a potential ecological disaster which local authorities are unable to deal with. The task the students have been set is this: operating under the constraint that the only access to the polluted lagoon is via a narrow and shallow reef that is only navigable at high tide, the Young Engineers must design and build a craft capable of reaching the stricken vessel and collecting the oil before low tide. Navigation data and other technical assistance is provided to the students by the Navy - but this is a tough competition and the Navy is looking for the students to show their engineering and problem-solving skills. Competing teams of Young Engineers will have to design and build scale-model craft capable of performing the job ‘for real’ under these difficult conditions, in specially designed testing tanks. The challenge has been devised by engineering experts at HMS SULTAN, the Navy’s School of Marine Engineering at Gosport, Hampshire, supported by HMS COLLINGWOOD. Young Engineers teams from throughout Britain, ranging from some of the local Portsmouth and Southampton schools to a group of Young Engineers from the west coast of Scotland, have entered the competition. Prototype model craft are currently under construction, and after a first round of judging the national finalists will be selected shortly. The national final of the HMS MARLBOROUGH Challenge takes place on Friday March 19, during national Science Week, at The School of Marine Engineering, HMS SULTAN in Gosport, Hampshire. Here, 40 teams (over 150 students in all, aged between 10 and 18) will compete in three age groups for a series of generous cash prizes and visits to Royal Navy ships. Each team will be asked to make a three-minute presentation to Naval officers outlining the results of their research, describing their work and explaining how they reached their final design. Then the teams will each be given the chance to put their craft into action in a specially designed water tank. Many of the exciting training facilities at HMS SULTAN will also be on view and open to other invited school and college students to enable them to find out more about engineering careers in the Navy. This year’s Navy Challenge has been designed to reflect just one of the situations that the Navy can face in the course of its varied operations around the globe. These operations include peace-keeping duties, disaster relief and anti-drug patrols. There are Young Engineers clubs in schools and colleges throughout the UK. The Royal Navy is one of the organisation’s national sponsors, alongside a number of the UK’s largest engineering-based companies including BAA, BT Exact and Lloyd’s Register. Young Engineers at national and regional levels work closely with the Royal Academy of Engineering and other professional bodies to promote engineering skills among the younger generation. DP