College News

Student Engineer creates the wind of change

Alex Pepper, one of QE’s Future Engineers, has received the commendation and backing of leading Engineering academics in the country. For his Extended Project qualification, Alex chose to construct a smoke visualization wind tunnel.  On a visit to Sheffield University, he spoke to academic Dr Andrew Garrard about his project. Dr. Garrard, an expert in this field, has advised and supported Alex including exchanging ideas about how his design could be improved.

Stephen Beck, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Sheffield University, comments “Alex sent us some photographs and videos of the finished wind tunnel and members of the senior staff were enormously impressed with what they saw.  Alex not only built a functioning device that would usually only be made by experts in the field, but also demonstrated the ability to apply a sound engineering process, of initial concept design, collaboration, delivery and evaluation.”  He adds “he UK is in desperate need of more practically minded engineers to meet the needs of our technologically developing society and we have a mission to make our students more practical and therefore more useful to engineering employers.  It is reassuring to know that there are young people like Alex who are enthusiastic about designing and making things that work well.”

Alex, who now has an offer to study Aerospace Engineering at the University of Sheffield says “I have always been focused on working with aircraft which triggered my interest in building a wind tunnel for my EPQ. It has been brilliant having the support of the academics at Sheffield; studying aerospace engineering at university will fulfil my goal of wanting to do this since the start of secondary school.  I am really looking forward to learning about aircraft and spacecraft propulsion and their structural design.”

Laurence Job, Vice Principal states “We are very proud of Alex’s success. To receive such approval from leading university figures in Engineering is an incredible achievement. Alex clearly has a wonderful future ahead of him in this exciting and valuable discipline. Congratulations to him.”