Programme for the 1975 Schools Hovercraft Competition programme, kept by Head of Technology Bill Elliott. [RGS Archives, ref: Acc 0104]
BBC Young Scientists
RGS made history when it became the only school in the BBC Young Scientist of the Year competition to win twice.
Read on to find out more about the projects that took the Faraday Trophy in 1978 and 1980.
RGS Hovercrafts
RGS in the 1970s was the land of hovercrafts for our Technical Studies students. They made history by developing one into a cutting-edge crop-spraying device.
Background
Engineer Sir Christopher Cockerell (1910-99) is known for his invention of the hovercraft in the 1950s. By the 1960s, hovercraft racing as a sport emerged, and schools took interest, with projects to design and build racing hovercrafts.
RGS was no exception, and our ‘Blue Scarab’ hovercraft was built in the Technical Studies Department in 1973. It was a project to coincide with the new A-level course in Applied Mechanics (1974).
RGS took part in the National Schools Hovercraft Association Championship race in 1975. The team of three students was placed second overall and awarded the Scarab Trophy for the best performance in the Scarab class.
Photograph of Head of Technology Bill Elliott in the hovercraft, c.1978 [RGS Archives, ref: Acc 0104]
Wasp
In 1978, after the newest racing hovercraft ‘Wasp’ had returned from the National Schools Hovercraft Championships, a new project was started. The aim was to adapt the craft into an agricultural crop-sprayer.
The aim of this project is to bring together two relatively new and unexplored scientific ideas to make a practical and economically viable machine which will help to solve some of the problems encountered in the application of agricultural chemicals. We also consider it could be used in the application of emulsifiers to oil slicks both inshore and on beaches, controlling weeds in marshes and ponds and many other similar applications.
Extract from original report for the Hovercraft Sprayer Project, by Paul Brown and Alistair Wolf (1978). RGS Archives, ref: 580
Photograph of the crop-sprayer hovercraft designed by RGS students, in the BBC studio, 1978. RGS Archives.
Photograph of the Faraday Trophy, awarded to the winners of the BBC Young Scientist of the Year competition. [RGS Archives, ref: Acc 0104]
Students Alistair Wolf and Paul Brown led the project, and their crop-spraying hovercraft was entered into the televised BBC’s Young Scientist of the Year competition. The team won the award in 1978 and was presented with the Faraday Trophy.
The trophy was from the Royal Institution, containing the original induction coil that Michael Faraday (1791-1867) made when he discovered the principles behind electricity in 1831.
The excitement did not stop there, and Wasp went on tour in 1978. The hovercraft was exhibited at the Science Museum in London between 22 March and 4 April, then went to the Royal Agricultural Show 4-6 July, where King Charles III (then Prince of Wales) came to see it.
Back to Newcastle, it was shown at the Newcastle Polytechnic ‘Tomorrow’s Technologist’ exhibition 11-13 July. The students were honoured with a civic reception by the Lord Mayor of Newcastle on 18 July.
Finally, the team jointly won the first European Young Scientists and Inventors Contest in Eindhoven for 1978.
What a whirlwind year for the students and the RGS Technical Studies Department!
Photograph of the crop-spraying hovercraft on trial at Dissington, 1978. Bill Elliott Archive. [RGS Archives, ref: 576]
Front cover of the RGS publication The Hovercraft Story, 1973-78. RGS Archives.
Prototype steering wheel from the hovercraft, 1978. Project winners of the 1978 BBC Young Scientist of the Year. Presented to Head of Technology Bill Elliott on the occasion of his retirement in July 1988. [RGS Archives, ref: Acc 0104]
Programmable Theatre Lighting
A second technical project made broadcast and newspaper headlines two years later, in 1980.
The purpose this time around was to develop a computerised lighting control system for theatre lighting, and was undertaken by Sixth Formers Anthony McKay and Graeme Harker.
With this project, RGS became the only school to win the BBC Young Scientist of the Year competition twice. Again, this was an amazing achievement by two students exploring innovative technology.
Read more about the project in Issue 112 of the ONA Magazine:
Photograph of A McKay G Harker with their theatre lighting project equipment, winners of the 1980 BBC Young Scientist of the Year competition. RGS Archives.