Longitude Explorer Prize 2015

Longitude Explorer Prize 2015

What was the Longitude Explorer Prize 2015?

We challenged young people aged 11-16 to shift from solely being consumers of satellite applications, which have a significant impact on almost every aspect of their lives, to become the creators, designers and developers of a whole new generation of satellite applications for social good.

Why did we do this?

2014 marked the 300th anniversary of the original Longitude Prize, the first incentive prize of its kind set up by the British government. In celebration, we launched the Longitude Explorer Prize,  a youth-focused challenge for secondary school students which aimed to provide a practical education opportunity linking young people to the history of the Longitude Prize, while supporting them to develop STEM skills.

Our overarching objective was to inspire the next generation of inventors, designers, engineers and explorers to develop the skills required for the 21st century and to imagine a world beyond our current comprehension, which is imperative to the success of UK industry.

What happened?

A total of 67 entries were received from across the UK. Sixty ideas were selected and the teams were invited to an induction event held in Birmingham at the national Big Bang Fair, which is a celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths for young people in the UK.

In August 2015, the judges whittled it down to 12 finalists. The selected finalists were given a couple of months to further develop their prototypes, polish their presentation skills and finalise marketing resources to showcase their technologies at the Final Awards event in London.  At the Award Ceremony the winning school was awarded £25,000, each runner up received £5,000 and all students received individual prizes, including iPads, Raspberry Pi kits, SamLabs kits and trophies.

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About the prize

67 teams took part…

from all over the UK, including Ireland

250 young people…

were involved throughout the lifecycle of the Prize

For 90% of young people…

this was the first challenge they had been involved in

Impact of the Prize

  • 72% of teachers considered the Challenge a suitable learning tool for young students
  • 100% of the teachers from the finalist teams would take part again and recommend the Challenge to a colleague
  • 83% of students rated the Challenge as very good or excellent
  • 91% of students stated that they gained a better understanding of how to bring an idea into market
  • 73% of the students developed good additional STEM skills thanks to the Challenge
  • 75% of students stated that the Challenge was very useful in learning how to turn ideas into reality
  • 70%  of students said the teamwork-building skills were very useful

Winner – Displaced – Tromless Hackers (Rendcomb College)

The Rendcomb College winners face the camera

‘Displaced’ is a cloud-hosted mobile web app that uses live GPS data collected from mobile devices to allow local charities to better coordinate the logistics of supporting homeless and vulnerable people.

The finalists