Hillside Challenge - now closed
The location of the allotments is at the bottom of the hillside from where the car park is located. This makes it difficult to transport things up and down the hillside.
The Challenge:
To enable members of Hillside Harvest food-growing group to transport things they need and produce up and down the hill on the new path throughout the year.
The solutions that will be submitted will consist of:
How the solutions will be judged:
By a member actually using the working prototype to assess its effectiveness with a selection of typical items that need transporting
By a panel of experts (Gordon of Gripple, Sheff Uni engineering lecturer, inventor, local entrepreneur/investor)
Against the following criteria:
Teams:
Several educational institutions will be invited to enter a team of young people. The ones who took up the Challenge through all the stages were:
o Tapton school
o King Edwards VII school
o Sheffield College (Hillsborough)
Teams will be made up of up to 5 students aged up to 19 from one of the educational institutions listed plus one student from University of Sheffield, supported by one Gripple engineer, who will offer feedback on designs, etc.
Incentives to Enter
There will be a range of benefits for those who enter, including:
Experience of working on a real world challenge that will enable them to apply what they have learnt in sciences, maths, engineering or control systems, resistant materials courses – excellent for their CV and good opportunity to learn skills of understanding requirements and designing solutions
Chance to develop skills and practical knowledge through working with university student, professional engineer
Opportunity to learn team working/mentoring skills
See result of winning entry: http://www.taptonschool.co.uk/news/?pid=3&nid=2
The Challenge:
To enable members of Hillside Harvest food-growing group to transport things they need and produce up and down the hill on the new path throughout the year.
The solutions that will be submitted will consist of:
- A design workbook showing working, designs and understanding of requirement and consideration of criteria
- A fully working prototype that will be set up and used on the site.
How the solutions will be judged:
By a member actually using the working prototype to assess its effectiveness with a selection of typical items that need transporting
By a panel of experts (Gordon of Gripple, Sheff Uni engineering lecturer, inventor, local entrepreneur/investor)
Against the following criteria:
- Effectiveness (by actual test) – worth up to 40 points
- Showing a good understanding of the requirement – 20 points
- Usable – 10 points
- Sustainable (minimal dependence on fossil fuel, high tech parts, etc.) – 10 points
- Affordable/commercially viable – 20 points
Teams:
Several educational institutions will be invited to enter a team of young people. The ones who took up the Challenge through all the stages were:
o Tapton school
o King Edwards VII school
o Sheffield College (Hillsborough)
Teams will be made up of up to 5 students aged up to 19 from one of the educational institutions listed plus one student from University of Sheffield, supported by one Gripple engineer, who will offer feedback on designs, etc.
Incentives to Enter
There will be a range of benefits for those who enter, including:
Experience of working on a real world challenge that will enable them to apply what they have learnt in sciences, maths, engineering or control systems, resistant materials courses – excellent for their CV and good opportunity to learn skills of understanding requirements and designing solutions
Chance to develop skills and practical knowledge through working with university student, professional engineer
Opportunity to learn team working/mentoring skills
See result of winning entry: http://www.taptonschool.co.uk/news/?pid=3&nid=2
Results of the Hillside Challenge
The Hillside Challenge
In George Orwell's Road to Wigan Pier, he described Sheffield as:
The town is very hilly (said to be built on seven hills, like Rome) and everywhere streets of mean little houses blackened by smoke run up at sharp angles, paved with cobbles which are purposely set unevenly to give horses etc, a grip.
Things have certainly changed over the last 75 years, but it’s true to say that the hills remain a feature of Sheffield.
In George Orwell's Road to Wigan Pier, he described Sheffield as:
The town is very hilly (said to be built on seven hills, like Rome) and everywhere streets of mean little houses blackened by smoke run up at sharp angles, paved with cobbles which are purposely set unevenly to give horses etc, a grip.
Things have certainly changed over the last 75 years, but it’s true to say that the hills remain a feature of Sheffield.
The Hillside Harvest Group are a small co-operative running a community allotment garden growing food to share amongst their members. The group aims to grow crops as organically and sustainably as possible, managing the land in a way that is attractive and wildlife friendly.
As the name suggests the allotment is on one of the many steep inclines in the West of the city, and this has lead to a real issue about how to transport produce and equipment up and down the hillside from the car park to the allotment below. This involves negotiating a combination of steps, muddy paths and woodland tracks.
This formed the basis of the challenge and was launched in late June 2012 (we envisaged a hot summer day – it rained!) with an open day for sixth form students from the surrounding schools and colleges. Students were able to meet members of the co-operative, including Nick Rousseau who had been the instigator of this project, to investigate the scope of the challenge.
Much work was done in taking photographs of the site, identifying particular problems and obstacles to solutions, and clarifying with members of the Hillside Harvest issues such as how much compost needs transporting down the hillside, how much produce needs to be moved in the opposite direction.
The students were drawn from different disciplines including D&T, maths, engineering and science. One of the aims was to illustrate how these different disciplines would all contribute to the final invention, and how they needed to work together to solve practical problems. This became obvious very early on when one of the students was busy using maths to calculate the angle of incline of different parts of the route. The other key aim was to open students eyes to the range of opportunities available beyond the age of 18.
As the name suggests the allotment is on one of the many steep inclines in the West of the city, and this has lead to a real issue about how to transport produce and equipment up and down the hillside from the car park to the allotment below. This involves negotiating a combination of steps, muddy paths and woodland tracks.
This formed the basis of the challenge and was launched in late June 2012 (we envisaged a hot summer day – it rained!) with an open day for sixth form students from the surrounding schools and colleges. Students were able to meet members of the co-operative, including Nick Rousseau who had been the instigator of this project, to investigate the scope of the challenge.
Much work was done in taking photographs of the site, identifying particular problems and obstacles to solutions, and clarifying with members of the Hillside Harvest issues such as how much compost needs transporting down the hillside, how much produce needs to be moved in the opposite direction.
The students were drawn from different disciplines including D&T, maths, engineering and science. One of the aims was to illustrate how these different disciplines would all contribute to the final invention, and how they needed to work together to solve practical problems. This became obvious very early on when one of the students was busy using maths to calculate the angle of incline of different parts of the route. The other key aim was to open students eyes to the range of opportunities available beyond the age of 18.
A key partner in the challenge was Gripple, a company with an international reputation for design and innovation.
On a damp day in 1986, a wire-salesman and budding entrepreneur named Hugh Facey found himself on a wet hillside in Wales discussing the woes of fencing with a frustrated farmer. Aggravated by cumbersome ways of joining fence wires by bending and knotting, he bemoaned the lack of alternatives. Hugh listened intently, convinced he could think up a better way of connecting two pieces of wire together. The seeds had been planted, and the idea for the Gripple was born.
On a damp day in 1986, a wire-salesman and budding entrepreneur named Hugh Facey found himself on a wet hillside in Wales discussing the woes of fencing with a frustrated farmer. Aggravated by cumbersome ways of joining fence wires by bending and knotting, he bemoaned the lack of alternatives. Hugh listened intently, convinced he could think up a better way of connecting two pieces of wire together. The seeds had been planted, and the idea for the Gripple was born.
Developed over the next two years in a small corner of Estate Wire, Sheffield, the original Gripple was launched in the UK in 1988.
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Gordon McCrae of Gripple met with the students on the launch date and then kindly allowed students to spend a day at their Sheffield site where they did a number of activities aimed at showing students how innovators work, introducing the concept of examining products from the viewpoint of users and how new products are developed.
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Students from King Edwards VII School and from Hillsborough College developing new prototypes for baby buggies as part of the workshop at Gripple.
The students were asked to develop a range of ideas, to manufacture a prototype and to present their solution to a panel of judges that included representatives from Gripple, Hillside Harvest and University of Sheffield (who provided a cheque for £300 to the winning team).
Students were also given the opportunity to work with staff at the Sheffield Engineering Centre around the manufacture of a prototype. This centre is designed especially for 14-19 year olds. It is a mix of practical skills and knowledge that is required in industry. The centre has built up relationships with lots of engineering companies, and the students really enjoy trips out to visit them. All students use the new facilities which includes 2 IT rooms where they learn about design by using industry standard 3d software. We have 2 electronics rooms, 2 workshops and a state of the art computer controlled machine room.
This was particularly interesting for those students who had not followed a technology/engineering Post 16 course, and it appeared to have a very positive impact on getting students to understand how the disciplines that they were studying could be located within a particular sector of the economy.
We had identified that the most likely solutions would be either modified wheelbarrow solutions or pulley based solutions, and we were not disappointed by the students.
Student work
Students were also given the opportunity to work with staff at the Sheffield Engineering Centre around the manufacture of a prototype. This centre is designed especially for 14-19 year olds. It is a mix of practical skills and knowledge that is required in industry. The centre has built up relationships with lots of engineering companies, and the students really enjoy trips out to visit them. All students use the new facilities which includes 2 IT rooms where they learn about design by using industry standard 3d software. We have 2 electronics rooms, 2 workshops and a state of the art computer controlled machine room.
This was particularly interesting for those students who had not followed a technology/engineering Post 16 course, and it appeared to have a very positive impact on getting students to understand how the disciplines that they were studying could be located within a particular sector of the economy.
We had identified that the most likely solutions would be either modified wheelbarrow solutions or pulley based solutions, and we were not disappointed by the students.
Student work
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The winning team from Hillsborough College with a prototype of their step climbing barrow.
