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A QE team’s hi-tech solution to the global problem of food waste won them second prize in an international competition. 

Inspired by sixth-former Ishan Jakkulwar’s experiences of seeing illegal food waste-dumping in India, Team Flux tackled the challenge by developing an autonomous drone that uses machine-learning to detect emissions from supermarkets’ food waste.   

The team won medals and a certificate after taking the runner-up spot in the British International Education Association STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) Youth Innovation Competition. 

Congratulating the team, Head of Technology Bilaal Khan said: “Their success demonstrates how creativity, collaboration and STEM knowledge can be combined to develop innovative solutions to real-world challenges. “ 

Alongside team leader Ishan, Team Flux comprised his fellow Year 12 pupils, Vivaan Shah and Aditya Shah, together with Dhruva Bhardwaj, who left QE this summer after completing Year 11.  

The four enthusiastically tackled the competition theme of How can we reduce waste in the food chain? by training their drone using machine-learning.    

An Arkwright Engineering Scholar, Ishan had recognised that using autonomous technology could reduce the time, cost and manpower needed to identify and address food waste. The competition provided an opportunity to develop his interest in engineering and hardware, while securing the prize reinforced his ambition to become an engineer.   

“Winning second prize was a nice surprise, especially, as it was the first time I have experimented with hardware,” he said. Ishan also believes that participating in the competition helped him secure work experience in robotics at UCL over the summer. 

Aditya’s focus was on the design process, on selecting and sourcing materials for the hardware, and on conducting research around the process of patenting the product.

The team hope to develop their model into a working prototype, while also exploring its potential value as intellectual property.

“It felt like a big achievement that people realised that our project had a lot of potential and could be used to create positive change in the future,” Aditya said. 

For his part, Vivaan took responsibility for project-management, keeping the team on track with timings and deadlines.

He also modelled aspects of the prototype using OnShape and Fusion 360, carrying out virtual stress and thermal testing, as well as contributing to the original design through detailed sketches and exploded diagrams. 

Thirty pupils from Years 7–11 headed east for a three-day summer Music tour, performing in some of the Czech Republic’s most beautiful and historic venues.

QE’s specially formed Prague Tour Choir sang in three churches over three days, with the choristers and other musicians mastering more than 20 separate pieces of music.

Their repertoire was hugely diverse, with composers who spanned the centuries – from Antonio Vivaldi, Bach, and Mozart through to Victor Johnson, born exactly 300 years after Vivaldi, in 1978.

Director of Music Ruth Partington said: “These pupils gave three outstanding performances, which were warmly received and which reflected the hard work, commitment and musical excellence of those involved.

“The tour was a fantastic opportunity for pupils to develop their musical skills, perform for international audiences and create lasting memories. It was a truly rewarding experience that celebrated the talent, enthusiasm and dedication of QE’s young musicians, who represented the School with pride throughout the trip.”

First on the itinerary was the 13th-century Gothic St Giles Church in in Nymburk – a small town near the capital. As in all three concerts, the choir began with Peter Jones’ Glory to God and ended their programme with Gloria Fanfare by Sally Albrecht.

On the two subsequent days, the boys performed at Hartigova Church and amid the Baroque magnificence of St Nicholas Church, both in Prague.

In addition to the choir’s performances, the concerts featured solo vocalists, pianists and organists, as well as the Junior Barbershop singing Minneapolis-based Andrew Parr’s arrangement of the American folk song, Shenandoah.

The tour party also explored many of Prague’s most iconic landmarks and attractions, including Prague Castle, Petřín Tower, the Old Town and Charles Bridge, Prague Zoo, the Prague State Opera and the historic fortress of Vyšehrad.

“These visits gave pupils the opportunity to experience the city’s rich history, architecture and culture, while enjoying time together beyond the concert stage,” added Miss Partingon, who accompanied the tour party, together with Assistant Heads of Music Caroline Grint and Jas Hutchinson-Bazely.

Click on the thumbnails below to view the images. 

• To watch a parent-compiled YouTube playlist of the tour, click here.

Two Sixth Form teams of QE engineers won prizes at a national awards ceremony in London after spending nine months developing innovative projects for the construction industry.

Team Overbury took the Innovation Award and Team Morgan Lovell the Business Pitch Award at the Engineering Development Trust’s (EDT) Industrial Cadets Gold Project Celebration and Award Ceremony at University College London.

The pupils, who have now entered Year 13, worked on their projects as part of the Engineering Education Scheme, sponsored by EDT, which included a two-day residential workshop at Cambridge University’s Dyson Centre for Industrial Design.

Technology teacher Tony Green said: “I am immensely proud of our QE engineers. Their awards recognise a great deal of hard work and perseverance, as well as the fruits of the mentorship they enjoyed with industry experts.”

Mr Green thanked QE’s industry sponsor for the projects, Mr Alex Wood, Health, Safety and Wellbeing Manager for Morgan Lovell, who are specialists in the design and construction of commercial buildings. Mr Wood also represented another construction industry firm, office fit-out and refurbishment specialists, Overbury.

QE’s Team Overbury worked on the development of a wearable solution for a construction worker – an exoskeleton designed to help employees with their tasks. The team comprised Dan Ji Chan, Abhinav Sandeep & Hasnain Jiwa.

Team Morgan Lovell members – Ayush Saha, Zane Shah & Haadi Siddiqui – developed a prototype of a sound sensor potentiometer. The product was designed to help construction workers guard against the occupational hazard of excessive noise. They won their award after presenting their ideas in a Dragons’ Den-style pitch.

The awards ceremony, a premier STEM showcase, brought together pupils, teachers, and industry experts. The QE teams are pictured at the ceremony with the EDT’s CEO, Julie Feest OBE.

Team Morgan Lovell’s leader, Zane Shah, said: “One of the highlights was seeing the impressive work produced by other teams and having the opportunity to network with students and professionals. We also enjoyed meeting and speaking with UCL engineering students, sharing our project, and demonstrating the hard work that went into its development.”

The whole day was a “rewarding experience”, with their business pitch “particularly memorable”, he added.

Abhinav, Team Overbury’s leader, said: “With little prior knowledge of the construction industry, building our modular exoskeleton Tenacis over three physical iterations was a significant step up from anything we’d done previously. It was a great honour to win the Innovation award, which recognised the unique cam-and-pulley mechanisms Tenacis has, differentiating itself from the market. Winning the award at UCL only made the experience more memorable.”

Head of Chemistry Amy Irvine was picked from among hundreds of teachers at competing schools to win the only award of its kind in a global competition.

Dr Irvine picked up the sole Teacher Award for Most Final Round Participants from the organisers of the International Chemistry Competition, which attracted schools from 190 countries.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “We are very proud of Dr Irvine’s success – a just reward for all that she does to encourage enriching co-curricular activities and to promote a love of her subject.”

The award honours teachers who have shown outstanding dedication in supporting their students and in fostering a strong engagement with Chemistry and Science.

Fifty QE pupils from across the year groups took part, with 36 passing the final round. They included silver medal-winner Raihan Ahmed, who has just entered Year 13, as well as 20 boys who took bronze.

Pupils had to read challenging research papers and then combine their knowledge with problem-solving skills to answer the questions.

News of the International Chemistry Competition results came after a year of Chemistry competition participation.

This has included:

• Sixty-eight sixth-formers competing in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s (RSC) UK Chemistry Olympiad winning a silver (46) or gold (22) medal, putting them in the top 8.5% of more than 17,000 competitors nationally. The paper involved tackling questions on henna tattoos, urine and chlorine in swimming pools, and malodorous isocyanide chemicals. The gold winners are listed below;
• Thirty Year 12 (now Year 13) students taking on the role of crime-busting analytical chemists helping the police in the RSC’s Schools Analyst Competition. First place in the QE round was awarded to Team Chemystery Club (Ishan Nakadi, Tuhin Mitra, Rahul Wimalendran). They were tasked with investigating a mysterious illness that had struck a person working in a local pharmacy. This involved completing challenging practical analytical techniques such as gravimetric analysis, titrations, and thin-layer chromatography;
• Fifty-two Year 12 pupils winning an award in the Cambridge C3L6 competition, with 31 of them gaining a gold award. Alex Kronabetter, Nayan Santheepan and Param Patel achieved very high scores, putting them near the top of the 15,000-plus pupils who took part nationally. The questions tested their knowledge of topics such as rates and isomerism that went far beyond their classroom syllabus.

“I am very proud of every student who has taken part in chemistry competitions and enrichment activities in the department in the past few months. They are fantastic role models who show a love of learning beyond the taught school curriculum!” said Dr Irvine.

UK Chemistry Olympiad gold medal-winners:

Year 12 (now Year 13 – pictured here)

Ashaj Vyas, Shashank Pothuganti, Adib Asfi, Mohith Sigirisetti, Ishan Nakadi, Wilson Xu, Ayaan Amin, Ishaan Mishra, Vihaan Salunke, Tuhin Mitra and Siddhant Pochalwar.

Year 13 (this summer’s leavers)

Shreyas Chandrasekar, Pranay Chawla, Ram Chockalingam, Ayan Hirani, Rohan Iranganti, Krithin Jaichandran, Hisham Khan, Robert Kotwinski, Ranajay Mehta, Timothy Mok and Zayn Phoplankar.

As they already start looking ahead to next summer’s GCSEs, three new Year 11s are celebrating their AI-powered revision app winning a top award.

The Blertly app developed by Abhiram Kakarla, Dhrishiv Panjabi and Eshwara Masina took first prize in the Best Use of AI category at this year’s TeenTech Awards.

Another QE team, whose project was also among those selected to go through to the  awards finals, won an Honourable Mention in the Next Gen Home Innovation category with their smart alarm clock.

The School’s Head of Technology, Bilaal Khan, said: “My congratulations go to these pupils, who showed a great deal of initiative and talent in using technology to provide solutions to real-world problems.”

In their promotional video for the competition, Abhiram explained what problem their app aimed to solve: “We realised that students spend far too long figuring out how to revise – [more] than actually revising. Notes in one place, flashcards in another, and AI somewhere else. So, we built Blertly to bring everything we know together into one unified platform.”

Dhrishiv added: “It plans your revision, connects with apps you already use, and adapts around your schedule. And instead of just giving answers, it actually helps you learn through personalised lessons, active recall, and exam practice.”

The TeenTech Awards were first run by the charity in 2012–2013. This year’s finals were held at the Institution of Engineering and Technology at Savoy Place, London, hosted by TeenTech’s CEO, Maggie Philbin, the veteran technology broadcaster.

The charity announced that the Best Use of AI category had been especially popular this year.

The award, which went jointly to the QE team and a team from Merchant Taylors’, was announced by Andy Kiln, Chief Technology Officer from sponsor SSCL, a large UK public sector-support company. He thanked entrants “for the huge dose of positivity” and asked that “they continue to dream big and shape the world”.

As well as individually receiving gift cards and a goody bag, the trio’s success secured a £1,000 award for the QE Technology department.

Aarav Abhijit Pathak and Adyansh Sahai, both of Year 11, entered the Next Gen Home Innovation category with their AquaLux Alarm Clock – an innovative Internet of Things (IoT) project. The awards programme summarised the problem it aimed to solve: “We’ve all been there. The alarm screams. You hit snooze and wake up forty minutes late, groggy and dehydrated.”

The alarm clock used some creative ways to encourage users to get out of bed and start their day on time – including checking whether a bedroom light is on and only stopping if the user has consumed his or her morning bedside drink. Their fully functional prototype was built from salvaged components.