A PUPIL from Ysgol Uwchradd Aberteifi is celebrating after winning a top prize and an all-expenses paid trip to America at the UK finals of a science and engineering competition.

Jack Davies won the International Science and Engineering Fair prize for his A-level product design project ‘Motor Mate’ at The Big Bang UK Young Scientists and Engineers’ competition in Birmingham.

He was also runner-up in the British Young Engineer category at the fair staged at the NEC.

For his project, Jack designed and manufactured a product that aids the transport and storage of different outboard motors on boats. He will now spend an all-expenses paid week at the world's largest technology fair in Arizona, where he will showcase his product.

More than 500 finalists from across the country were selected to show their ideas at The Big Bang Fair, where 10 were then shortlisted to pitch Dragon’s Den-style to a panel of VIP judges - including Nikki Yates (senior vice president, GSK Europe), Dallas Campbell (The Gadget Show and Bang Goes The Theory TV presenter) and Roma Agrawal (structural engineer on The Shard, STEM promoter and TV presenter).

The Big Bang Competition is an annual contest designed to recognise and reward young people's achievements in all areas of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM), as well as helping them build skills and confidence in project-based work.

Previous winners have gone on to enjoy a range of other achievements on the back of their successes – including winning international awards in China and the US, getting backing from businesses for their projects, and taking part in conference presentations to industry professionals as well as appearing on the television and radio shows to talk about their project.

Hilary Leevers, chief executive of EngineeringUK, which organises The Big Bang Competition, said: “The judges have been blown away by the quality of entries from all the finalists – not only for their brilliant new ideas but for how eloquently they spoke about them.

“It certainly bodes well for the future that the engineers, scientists and inventors of tomorrow are already producing such astute and creative project work.”