Fab Four Clock Designs Chime With Judges
16 December 2009
Incredible Clock Competition First Place winner Amy Louise White (age 12) with Penny Bennett, Head of Lawn Primary School, and Peter Allen, University Marketing Director.
(Left to right) Peter Allen, University Marketing Director; Tom Cooper, winner of the contest's second prize and Kate Challinor, Head of Art at Swanwick Hall School.
Four children have achieved a timely creative success in the University of Derby's Incredible Clock competition.
More than 500 schoolchildren from across Derbyshire took part in the competition to help design a clock for the University, organised by it and clockmakers Smith of Derby.
All of the top four entries will have aspects of their ideas incorporated into the clock's final design. Once complete, the large-scale clock will be placed on the side of the North Tower at the University's Kedleston Road site, where it will be visible for miles around.
The site's three towers, part of the Derby cityscape since the 1960s, are already changing in a £13.5million transformation, as new windows give the University a sleeker, more modern look.
A panel of judges was delighted with the standard of clock competition entries and 12-year-old winner Amy Louise White, who entered while a final year pupil at Lawn Primary School, will be invited to the University and to Smith's headquarters to see the clock being manufactured.
The roll of honour, their prizes and what the judges liked about the entries is as follows:
First Place
Amy Louise White, formerly of Lawn Primary School in Allestree and now at Chellaston School, Chellaston.
Design appeal: The clock's unique shape and arch feature.
Prize: Also £100 High Street vouchers and a laptop for her school.
Second Place
Tom Cooper of Swanwick Hall School, Swanwick.
Design appeal: Its modern look.
Prize: £50 High Street vouchers.
Joint Third Place
Jacob Heald of Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Ashbourne.
Design appeal: The clarity of the numbers.
Prize: £25 High Street vouchers.
Joint Third Place
Billy King of The Curzon C of E Primary School, Quarndon.
Design appeal: The design of the hands and the numbers.
Prize: £25 High Street vouchers.
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Peter Allen, the University's Director of Marketing, said: "We were overwhelmed with the amount of entries, their quality and most of all the imagination shown by the children.
"I would particularly like to thank all the teachers in the schools who took the time to get their classes involved in this project."
Bob Betts, Managing Director of Smith of Derby, added: "Each year we host an 'apprentice week' which allows our designers the opportunity to work with five or six schoolchildren and stay 'in touch' with their vision of what time means to them. This competition demonstrated yet again that great design is in good hands in the generations coming through.
"At Smith of Derby we value creativity very highly as well as engineering excellence. So it was really gratifying to see how creative our Derbyshire schoolchildren are because they will be the designers of the future."
The competition was open to Derbyshire children aged 16 and under, and was launched earlier this year in the week British summer time began.
It is hoped that University students will now take part in the development as the final clock design is taken forward into production. This will include two sessions at the Smith headquarters to work on engineering challenges and other issues.
Around £50,000 has been set aside for the project, the core aims of which are to find an iconic design and reflect the fact that the University operates on a global scale, with links and students from all around the world.
For more information about this news release, contact Deputy Head of Corporate Relations Simon Redfern on 01332 591942 or 07748 920038 or email s.redfern@derby.ac.uk.
