REVIEWS
CISCO
BY IGNIS YOUNG REPORTER
Hannah Mehr AGED 12
BIGAWARDS
LITTLE
In March , three of my friends and I took part in the ‘ Cisco Little Big Awards ’ national final after having won our regional heat a week earlier . Our team was supported by STEMnet ambassador , Ray O ’ Hanlon and Head of Computing at our school , Mrs Belinda Kesler .
The theme of the competition was “ The Internet of Things – Connecting the World ” and our team created the concept of a spelling pen , which could identify and suggest corrections for spelling mistakes written on normal paper .
We competed against 10 other schools from around the UK in the final ; shortlisted from 251 schools across the country . The final took place at Cisco ’ s UK headquarters in London and because of this , we had to stay overnight in a hotel and went out for a meal with our teacher in the evening .
For the competition , we took to the stage to present our idea to a panel of judges and all of the other groups attending the final . Standing on the stage presenting a product and concept that we had created and believed in was one of the scariest and most incredible moments of my life . After that , we spoke to the judges individually at our stall where we showed them a more detailed look at our concept .
The competition was tough and our team , although one of the youngest and smallest teams there , impressed everyone attending , although we didn ’ t win .
We thought that that would be the end of it , but no . After we got back , one of our school governors loved our idea so now we are currently working on building a prototype before patenting and hopefully producing the SpellPen into a real product .
From not even thinking our idea would work to going to London and now making our product , our journey shows that if you believe in an idea , you can go far and with a little determination , you can make it happen .
Don ’ t forget to look out for the SpellPen ! Coming soon !
4
IGNIS