Students develop winning STEM projects

HSC Design and Technology students Toby McConnell and James Woodbridge  finished in the top three in the UpRising entrepreneurial program for design students.

Toby’s clever Hail Protector design to protect cars from hail damage attracted the most interest and ‘likes’. His winning $500 prize will now help him to further develop the design. He has already spent $360 on two prototypes and plans to fine-tune the second design with feedback from the UpRising experience.

“It took trial and error to get something that would work. The first didn’t quite protect the car. I’ve just made my second one, which is getting closer to what I want,” he said. “Someone suggested a different way of connecting it to the car, which I thought was quite a smart idea, so I’m going to explore that idea as well.”

James Woodbridge’s Electrolysis Clean Cooking System was also very popular with voters and placed third, winning $200. Both design students attended a conference hosted by Uprising during the April school holidays, where they had the opportunity to connect with business and industry professionals, as well as research, government and community agencies.