British Oxygen Company Challenge 2005
Two teams of our sixth form chemistry students took part in the annual British Oxygen Company Challenge on Friday 24th June at the B.O.C headquarters in Guildford.
The theme for this year’s Challenge was to invent a practical new application for helium gas. Each team had to make a working model and write a business plan, as if they were to market their new product. The students had to research and cost their ideas and come up with a feasible product, which would have to face the scrutiny of the team of judges.
Team 1
Our first team came up with the Flarial, a small emergency kit designed to improve mobile telephone reception. A balloon can be inflated by a compact cylinder of helium gas. The balloon elevates a fine aerial wire connected to the mobile telephone, which in trial was shown to increase the signal strength by one to two ‘bars’ on the indicator. The team gave an excellent presentation of their invention, accompanied by a superb promotional video made by and featuring Jack Knightly. You can view the video below.
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| Hoop Game Team: Bathoul Ahmed, Bassaam Salim, Caroline Vaz, Karmukelan Jayapalan, Nabeel Muneer, Zoheb Sheikh and Luke Yarlett |
Team 2
Our second team invented a simple but exciting new beach netball-style game. A floating helium filled ring is held down by a weight small and string. The ring looks attractive, containing brightly coloured feathers. Its constant motion only adds to the fun and skill needed to throw the ball through the hole. This new game, whilst marketed at younger people can be enjoyed by all age groups.
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| Floating Aerial 'Flarial': Mark Cornelius, Hardeep Dhanjal, Jack Knightly, Mark Remedious, Nakulan Navaratnam and Simon Xu |
The six teams in the Challenge were all commended for their high standard and hard work. We were unlucky not to win, but the competition was quite tough. Below is a picture of the winning entry from the Royal Russell School called the ‘Anti-Grav Cam’, a floating camera for inspecting the outside of buildings.
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| The Winning Team from Royal Russell School with their Anti Grav Cam |
