TeenTech is a national innovation competition that invites pupils to come up with ideas and design products that solve real-world problems. Over 1500 pupils entered the competition and, this year, we had an incredible 4 teams qualify for the grand finals held at the IET, London; two from Year 10 and two from Year 8.

The teams have been working on their ideas since the Autumn term in order to develop them and submit them at the end of the Spring Term. Once they have qualified, they then have a few weeks to prototype the idea and add any extra research that they gather to support their entry. The finals are an amazing experience and a great opportunity to pitch ideas to industry judges and also to network with other innovators from their peer groups.

The teams have been designing products, modelling apps, writing code to support their ideas, as well as problem-solving, planning and managing their products and workloads. All teams are to be commended for bringing their final submission together.

Team Liberandum, created by Claudia, Elisa, Elyssa, qualified in the Safety & Security category for designing a QR code patch with different levels of authentication.

Team Zermatt, designed by Imogen, Sylvie and Faith, created an app, like Microsoft Teams, that made sure that homework was balanced with well-being - which also provided access to services such as well-being chats. On her experience, Imogen said:

"Overall, Teen Tech was a great experience. The judging process, whilst scary, was also very interesting and challenging to be able to explain our idea in full detail. The judges had many questions and brilliant stories to tell. Although my team didn’t win in our category, I loved working on and sharing our app with people and I cannot wait to go back next year as an ambassador."

In Year 8, Shop with ME is an app designed to reduce waste and returns when online shopping, by users scanning their own body shape and creating a personal Avatar that can be used to see how clothes actually fit before ordering.

Finally, Helaina, devised AVA,  a box-like device that is designed to help calm people who have dementia, by using familiar music, favourite essential oils and photographs of loved ones.

All the teams did an excellent job of, pitching their products to the judges, answering lots of questions and explaining their ideas. The teams also gained recognition in several skills categories including, teamwork, communication skills, tenacity and thinking big & bold.

In the awards ceremony itself,  Eleanor & Maya, with Shop with ME, received an honourable mention, in the Food & Retail category. The judges were impressed with their idea and commented on how well they presented and explained their app.

We are delighted to announce that Claudia, Elisa & Elyssa, from Team Liberandum, won their category in Safety and Security. The judges loved their product and wanted it to be available now.  They went on stage to collect their trophy for their well-deserved win.

TeenTech is a competition is that open to pupils from Year 7-13 and we will be starting on new projects in the Autumn term.