A Perth primary school has swept the board to take the top three spots in a drone-designing competition for a top internet retailer.
Pupils at Goodlyburn primary beat almost 2,000 competitors in the Scottish leg of the contest, which was run by Amazon and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
The children will now go forward to the national competition.
Goodlyburn pupil Joanne Wright was awarded the top spot for designing her Spinner drone, which would deliver surprise birthday presents to children.
Second place went to Grace Keay for the Sunny drone, which would deliver water, paddling pools and sun cream to people on warm days, and third place was awarded to Angus MacDermid for his Pizza Deliverer drone.
The successful young engineers were awarded their prizes in a special ceremony during a school assembly. Winning students took home gift baskets of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) prizes. Joanne also earned a cash donation of £1,000 for her school, to be spent on in-school STEM resources.
One national winner will be selected from the 12 regional finalists and have the opportunity to travel to the Amazon Prime Air Lab in Cambridge, UK, where their design will be exhibited for a year.
The competition helped raise awareness of the CAA’s Drone Code, a set of rules and guidelines which outline how to fly drones safely and within the law in the UK.
All primary school students in Primary two to five in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were eligible to enter the competition.
Students were asked to design their interpretation of a delivery drone to serve a humanitarian purpose or improve society, such as first-response medical aid, sending flowers to a loved one who is unwell or delivering toys to children in need.
Jonathan Nicholson, assistant director of communications at the CAA, said: “All the entries were absolutely amazing and it was great to see so many students showing an interest in drones. By the time they are adults, drones could well be playing key roles in everyday life. But for that to happen we need everyone who flies a drone now to do so safely.”
Lauren Kisser, operations director at Amazon Prime Air, commented: “I’m delighted that the Design a Drone competition encouraged these students to unleash their creative thinking on how drones can be used to improve society.
“The entries we received were full of innovative and thoughtful ideas that could very well change the world one day.”
Amazon has previously outlined plans for a drone delivery service to convey purchases to customers.
The firm has a development centre in Cambridge working on a range of projects including Prime Air, the company’s delivery system designed to safely get packages to customers in 30 minutes or less using drones.
