The first round was carried out at the Primary Schools themselves, and involved all of the P6 class dividing into pairs to determine who could build the best rotating tower and proceed onto the next level. Pupils from Eddleston, Kingsland, Priorsford, and West Linton primaries all faced the challenge of building a bridge out of the popular building material K’nex. These bridges had to clear a river 50cm wide without any posts going down through the water; they had to allow boats to travel beneath them, having a 20 cm clearance from the surface; and last but certainly not least they had to withstand the weight of crossing traffic: represented in this contest by a 1kg bag of sugar.

The P6s were introduced to the challenge by David Jamieson, a Science and Engineering Ambassador. Dr Jamieson, being a retired Engineer with over 30 years of experience behind him, was also judging the contest. He gave a short pep-talk to the pupils before setting them loose on their large boxes of bridge building material, and provided help to those who needed it along with Dr Taylor, head of science at the high school.

The children all drew a plan to work to before starting their construction, and over the course of the hour allowed to build the bridge, seven unique designs emerged from the pairs.

Dr Jamie is part of the Science and Engineering Ambassador Scheme, which is associated to Setpoint: an organisation that works with local communities and other organisations to promote Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths throughout Great Britain. The K’nex challenge is one of the many projects it supports, which is very beneficial to the primary school children who take part.

"I think it helps them to learn the core skills of team working, innovation, and problem solving," said Dr Jamieson, adding "and introduces them to the aspects of these skills involved with engineering."

The finished bridges were judged on criteria consisting of Presentation and Communication, Design, Solving Problems, Operation/Function, and Visual Appeal. Sam Davies and Caillie Douce from Priorsford came first with 77 points out of 100, and the runners up were Craig Anderson and Celena MacLeod with 66.

These four young engineers will be moving on to the East of Scotland competition, to be held at Dynamic Earth on Wednesday 18th May. The winners from this will move onto the Scottish final at Hampden Park on 17th June, and the victors will travel to London to represent Scotland in the National Final.

Thanks must be given to Dr Jamieson and Dr Taylor for running the contest, and also to the teachers from the primary schools, and the parents who gave up their time to allow the challenge to take place. Special thanks are also due for the pupils who took part in the contest and best of luck should go to the four pupils from Peebles who will be representing Tweeddale at Dynamic Earth.