Jersey Post is thrilled to announce Year 10 Victoria College students as the winners of Jersey Post’s 2021 Postbox Challenge.
Over the past 12 weeks, Key Stage 4 students from Les Quennevais, Victoria College, Jersey College for Girls and Beaulieu have been developing digital prototypes using IoT technology to create an innovative digital solution which can eliminate unnecessary daily journeys made by our postal workers to 120 potentially empty postboxes across the island.
The brief was to design a solution which will notify Jersey Post as to which postboxes contain mail and, crucially, which ones do not, so Jersey Post can eliminate unnecessary trips to empty postboxes.
On Wednesday 9th June, students presented their designs to a panel of industry experts at the Digital Jersey Hub.
The judging panel consisted of Tim Brown, Chief Executive Officer at Jersey Post, Professor Andy Stanford-Clark, Chief Technology Officer at IBM UK, Alexia McClure, Chief Operating Officer at Jersey Business and Alexa Munn, Head of Governance at Children, Young People, Education and Skills at the Government of Jersey.
The Postbox Award Ceremony was held yesterday evening (Tuesday 15th June). Tim Brown, Chief Executive Officer at Jersey Post and Senator Kristina Moore, revealed the winners at a ceremony held at the Digital Jersey Hub to an audience of 37 competing students and their teachers.
Postbox Challenge Winners:
Year 10 Victoria College students. The students created a well thought out digital sensor with the potential to count the number of items that land in a postbox. They exhibited a complete and functional workflow, from posting a letter to a user interface for postal workers. The team also included a worked analysis of power consumption and had a fully costed bill of materials, and understood the manufacturing/mass production process.
The main picture shows the winning team.
Runners-up:
Year 11 Victoria College students were runners up with a good functional prototype, covering the complete workflow from posting to monitoring.
Design Award:
Les Quennevais Year 10 students. Their design processes from, creative artwork to the quality functional CAD model, demonstrated mastery of industrial design principles.
Honourable Mention:
Les Quennevais Year 10 students. For creating an application to survey postboxes exemplified the important design principle of fully understanding the problem before designing the solution.
Superstar Award:
Thomas Waller, Victoria College, was nominated for being the team’s driving force.
Shining Star Awards:
- Jemma Harding, Beaulieu
- Eathan Soar, Les Quennevais
- Taylor Clark, Jersey College for Girls.
Tim Brown, Chief Executive Officer at Jersey Post, commented: “We are continuously looking at ways to reduce our carbon footprint, and this challenge was a brilliant way to involve students and promote a technological career at the same time. The students made a tremendous effort in coming up with some great designs that could save Jersey Post time and resource. A huge well done to each student that took part.”
The winning team will now be invited to the Digital Jersey Hub to work with the Postbox Challenge organisers to polish their prototype to be included around the island’s postboxes.
