Crowning glory for all-girl team

Ripley St Thomas CE Academy's Junior Masterminds Sarah Robinson, Rosie Park and Hannah Trimnell

Girl power is top of the class at one Lancashire high school.

An all-female team from Ripley St Thomas CE Academy fought off tough competition from hundreds of entries across the UK to be crowned regional winners in The Bright Ideas Challenge, Shell’s national schools’ science competition.

The competition asked 11 to 14-year-olds to use their STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) skills to come up with creative solutions for powering future cities to cope with the projected growing demands of 2050.

The winning Year Nine team from the Lancaster school, Junior Masterminds, comprised Sarah Robinson, Rosie Park and Hannah  Trimnell .

Their idea was to create mini hydro-electric systems that could be installed in drain pipes across future cities.

Energy would be created as water moved through pipes, with the systems installed in internal heating and waste pipes and outside drain pipes.

It won them £1,500 to ‘super-size’ the STEM learning experience at their school as well as a tablet computer for each team member.