[The Mayor and Mayoress, Cllr and Mrs Rob Appleyard, greeting two American visitors.]
Looks like l missed the launch of the Bath Young Inventor of the Year opening exhibition at the 44AD artspace in Abbey Street last week.
Thanks to Paul Thomas, l can tell you that Tony Miles Emeritus Professor of Bio Mechanics at the University of Bath gave an inspirational talk.
Peter told me: ” It was a whiz through amazing inventions created by children ranging from how to weigh an elephant to a design for an extremely rough terrain heavy vehicle. He explained that inventors need to carefully assess the problem that the invention is designed to solve, have a clear scheme for manufacture and also produce an effective plan to market the product.
The Mayor of Bath Cllr Rob Appleyard thanked Tony Miles for his advice and urged the audience to have serious fun inventing, pointing out the example of one of the exhibits. the Wizzibug. “It’s a great invention. Just what tiny kids want and need for their own independence.” The wizzibug is a highly manoeuvrable wheelchair for children aged 1 to 5 and manufactured by Designability, a charitable company set up to devise, design, manufacture and market aids for the less abled. The ‘Wizzibug’ is available free to suitable applicants.
The Mayor then invited the children to view the exhibits carefully. “Such a wide variety from Pitman’s Script to Carwardine’s angle poise lamp, from William Smith’s geology map to Dyson’s vacuum cleaner and Caroline Herschel’s mapping of the heavens to Harbutt’s plasticine. Amazing that Bath produced them all.”
Children gave the ‘hands on’ activities a thumbs up as did two visiting American students who were thrilled to have the chance of meeting the Mayor and Katie O’Brien, gallery director, was delighted as she launched the new free family Inventors trail the YIA team have created. It takes walkers around the city centre visiting various sites associated with local inventors.
“It’s amazing how inventive Bath is and continues to be. We’ve got examples of inventions taking place up at the University of Bath in 2022 and the work team that won an award for maths modelling for the Covid Pandemic.” Katie explained.
The exhibition runs until February 26th and the competition itself will close on June 15th with an exhibition of all the inventions and judged by a team of local business people chaired by Professor Miles.
In the meantime on the last Saturday of each month at 11am at the Museum of Bath at Work Stuart Burroughs joint organiser of the competition will be giving talks about local inventors and members of the YIA team will be on hand to give advice and guidance to young inventors.”
The Young Inventor of the Year competition is open to all children and young adults from 8 to 17. More details at 44AD.net
