Drone idea helps Peterborough school rise to challenge

Five year 10 students from The Peterborough School won Microsoft's STEM Student Challenge for 2017 and went home with prizes worth £12,500, after beating 10 other teams in the final.
The winnersThe winners
The winners

The challenge was to come up with an original technology idea which they felt could exist in 20 years time.

The students then decided to design a drone named after the Greek god of medicine Asclepius, which could help aid agencies to predict outbreaks of deadly diseases, with the aim to improve the health of millions of people in developing countries.

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Dyuti Chakraborty, François Van Cauwenbergh, Marcus Akester, Rhys 
Williams and Thomas Smith each walked away with a Microsoft Surface Pro tablet laptop and a £5,000 cheque for the school, after defeating around 250 schools that participated.

“It’s so great that our team was recognised for our idea and all the hard work we put in has paid off,” Chakraborty said, amazed after his win. “I really enjoyed the opportunity and it’s a very good way to encourage pupils to be inventive and think outside the box while raising awareness of STEM subjects.”

Martin Webb, head of computing and digital strategy at the school, added: “Not only will this encourage students to invent the future, it will also help other pupils become more involved in thinking about technology and what the world will look like in 10 or 20 years’ time.”

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