Cracking idea by Blackpool school makes it best for innovation

A machine which aims to reduce pollution designed by pupils at a Blackpool school has come out on top in prestigious competition to find the inventors of the future.

The 'Pollution Demolition Machine' designed by Year Five pupils at Thames Primary School has been chosen as the North West winner of the 2007 Cracking Ideas project. They will now battle it out with five other schools from around the country for the national title.

Cracking Ideas is fronted by Oscar® winning inventors Wallace & Gromit, and is the biggest government backed project of its type. The search is now on for the 2008 innovators.

During the summer term children and teachers around the UK were logging onto www.crackingideas.com and following lesson plans linked with the national curriculum and designed to encourage innovation.

The classroom activities included a competition where the nine and ten-year-old pupils used everyday objects to create an invention - a solution to an everyday problem they had encountered.

The pupils from Thames Primary School came up with a truly green machine to solve the problem of global warming. A grape tub and fizzy drink bottles were used to extract polluted air from the atmosphere. Air goes through an air cleanser and the pollution is stored on a series of disks. Some of the pollution could even be used to fuel the machine. The clean air is then released via a small hole in the bottom of the grape tub.

The Cracking Ideas project was developed by the UK Intellectual Property Office which encourages innovation and processes patent and trade mark applications. The success of the competition means it will be run again this year.

Amongst Thames Primary School's prizes is a lap top computer. If they are successful in the national competition they will be presented with an original trophy by Aardman Animations, creator of Wallace & Gromit.

Wendy Greaves, head of Year 5 at Thames Primary School, said her pupils had worked hard to come up with the winning entry.

"This was a fantastic initiative and a great way to bring learning to life and show children how important innovation is. We are really pleased to have won the regional competition and hope we have come up with the cracking idea that will win the national title," she said.

Intellectual Property and Quality Minister Lord Triesman, said the standard of entries was high.

"Cracking Ideas has successfully brought innovation into the classroom and has been a tremendous success."

"Thames Primary has shown how primary school children can be great innovators and we are looking forward to seeing more of this in the future," he said.

More information on Cracking Ideas can be found at www.crackingideas.com

Date of release: 12 October 2007