The Big Bang competition is open to schools across the UK and, if selected, teams get to exhibit their projects in the National Finals at the NEC in Birmingham.
The event is huge: 80,000 people visit it over three days, and a team of Y13 students, and another team of Y11 students from Kingswood were selected to attend the event.
Sensibly, but sadly, the public event was cancelled due to Coronavirus but teams were invited to send in 5-minute videos to keep the competition element going.
Year 11 project: Emergency blankets improved with un-recyclable plastics
Our Year 11 team wanted to find a use for plastics which are difficult to recycle or not currently recycled but which are used in high volumes for packaging such as expanded polystyrene and bubble wrap.
They decided to investigate whether adding these materials as a "filling" to silver foil emergency blankets, such as those handed out after races or carried in emergency first aid kits on expeditions, would improve their heat retention qualities.
This would potentially make them softer so they could be given out to rough sleepers since the outer foil sheet is waterproof.
They would also still be very lightweight.
As committed environmentalists as well as enthusiastic Chemists, the girls were very keen to find an ethical use for unwanted plastics and, as there is a serious problem with homelessness in Bath, they wanted to find a use which could potentially help rough sleepers cheaply and effectively.
The team tested a prototype of our blanket at the Big Sleep Out, and planned to approach Julian House the Homeless charity in Bath as well as asking school Duke of Edinburgh expeditions to test it out for us in the future.
The pupils believe that there is a ready supply of unwanted used packaging, particularly polystyrene cups, from companies in and around Bath.
The blanket which had the best insulating properties in our trials contained bubble wrap and polystyrene pieces arranged in a double layer inside the foil blanket “envelope” in a “honeycomb” arrangement to keep them evenly distributed throughout the blanket.
The team finished as Runner-Up in the Intermediate Science category - a fantastic achievement!
Year 11 team
Sixth Form project: Plasters for Disasters
The Y13 team worked on a ‘Plasters for Disasters’ project: a wound dressing for emergencies which could be put over a wound and would give the patient information about any infection under the dressing, without having to remove it.
This was designed for events such as Hurricanes, Earthquakes, etc., where people trek to treatment centres and then go home, losing medical contact on the way, but needing to know all is well with their wound.
There were a great number of technical difficulties to overcome, and the dressing is not yet properly developed, but the team won the Senior Science category.
This means they get to share £750, they would normally have been feted on stage at the event, so it is a real shame it was cancelled.
The team was made up of Ella, Tosin, Numa, Mai, Alix, and they received a little help from Stephen King: they all received Certificates but only the girls share the money.
Their video and information about their win will be sent to many people including the MP.
What is really good is that this was an almost all-female STEM team, competing for only the second time Kingswood had taken part in the competition, and they won – a really considerable achievement.
Year 11 team
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