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Technology Tournament accredited

Technology Tournament accredited

Rotary is pleased to announce that the RIBI Technology Tournament competition for young people has been accredited by the British Science Association to the CREST Discovery  Awards. The CREST Awards scheme is Britain’s largest and most widely recognised national award scheme for project work in the STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths). It is co-ordinated by the […]

Rotary is pleased to announce that the RIBI Technology Tournament competition for young people has been accredited by the British Science Association to the CREST Discovery  Awards.

The CREST Awards scheme is Britain’s largest and most widely recognised national award scheme for project work in the STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths). It is co-ordinated by the British Science Association, a charity which advances understanding, accessibility and accountability of the sciences and engineering.

Each of the 100 or more RIBI Technology Tournaments held annually, are a day out for teams of four students with an interest in engineering, design, technology and science, to design and build a solution to an unseen technical task within a specific time frame. The teams need to have good communication skills, be well organised and able to show the stages of development of their task solution in a design portfolio. Each team’s solution as a working model is competitively tested and assessed by a team of judges. Recognition is given to the winning teams in each of three age categories.

By taking part in an RIBI Technology Tournament, organised by local Rotary clubs, students are already demonstrating many of the skills they need to obtain the CREST Discovery Award. These include working systematically, solving problems creatively and relating their project to a real world context. The CREST Discovery Award requires 10-14 year olds to complete at least five hours work on a project in one day.

President of RIBI, Nan McCreadie said: “Our Technology Tournament programme is one of a range of national youth competitions which Rotary runs annually to help develop the skills and talents of young people. At a time when industry is facing increasing shortages of skilled workers in the fields of science and technology, we are delighted that the RIBI Technology Tournament has been accredited to the CREST Awards Scheme and hope that this will result in more schools taking part.”

To encourage more schools to participate, RIBI is exhibiting for the first time at the Big Bang Fair, the largest celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths for young people in the UK, at the NEC Birmingham from 13-16 March 2014.

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