Now in its fourth year at FHS, the Gold Level Industrial Cadets programme partners up Lower Sixth pupils with mentors in engineering companies, giving them a real-world engineering problem to solve over seven months. The program culminates with a written technical report, a model of their project and a presentation to a panel of external engineers. This year our LVI team of five worked with PCS Instruments and were tasked with building a 2-axis motorised pulley system using 3D printed parts, a Raspberry Pi computer and a set of motors and limit switches. Their final system is now being employed in PCS Instrument’s floor-model lubricant testing machine, which is taken to tribology conferences around the globe.

Over 200 teams participated in the scheme across the UK, and we competed against 38 teams in our region. During the Summer term, the team attended the Industrial Cadet Celebration 2023 at Jacobs Engineering, and our FHS team won Project of the Year for our region! Many congratulations to Venice, Lily, Lola, Julie and Mona!

This achievement is the latest in a series of exciting developments in STEM at FHS, including five Year 8 pupils winning the Innovation Award at at this year’s PA Consulting Raspberry Pi Competition, the rising popularity of clubs such as Robotics and Raspberry Pi Club and Coding Club. We recently welcomed computer scientist Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon as a guest speaker in our pioneering Hale Lecture Series. We are also delighted to be offering A Level Computer Science for the first time from September 2023.
There’s no doubt that our Lower Sixth's success will inspire our whole FHS community, and huge congratulations to the students for displaying such ingenuity, perseverance, creativity and teamwork!
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