Midland Metropolitan Hospital: Shropshire youngsters' input is just what doctor ordered

Youngsters from The Old Hall School in Wellington wanted a taste of reality when embarking on a project at school.

It led them to the new Midland Metropolitan Hospital, where they donned hard hats and presented their findings to the men and women in charge.

The children were asked to create a traffic monitoring system for the new hospital, which is being built on a 16-acre site in Grove Lane at Smethwick, near Birmingham. Members of the Coding Club at The Old Hall School were asked to look at issues with deaing with visitors and staff visiting the 10-storey building.

Kat Fidler, a parent at the Old Hall School, also happens to be head of innovation at hospital contractor Carillion. She suggested the children would love to be involved in a real life project.

"The UK construction industry needs bright minds," she said. "In Carillion, we work with the government to support development of STEM skills and get boys and girls excited about careers in construction.

"Technology development of recent years enables us to engage our future engineers in construction projects in a way we have never been able to do before."

The Year 5 and 6 pupils have been working on the challenge to create a system to measure traffic moving on and off the construction site for several months, using a variety of methods and applications. It is hoped the resulting equipment and its data may help to improve traffic flow on such large scale developments.

Head of Technology at the school, Peter Ashley, said the children had approached the project with great enthusiasm, discussing different methods and their potential problems.

"Initially they looked at possible infra-red beam technology but they identified potential problems in getting accurate data. They then looked at a pressure pad system linking it up through WiFi to an app so they could refine it to get better results and program it to transmit live data," he explained.

"All the children in Coding Club made their own prototype and they have tested them using the school car park to help with identifying possible problems and addressing them before taking the final design to Carillon. One of those problems was the hassle of counting the results which led to the live website data feed. They also had to come up with a more watertight means of hosting the equipment than our original biscuit tin.

"The entire group were just so thrilled to get to visit the site and see their final system work for the first time. I think it is an experience they will never forget."

The children and Mr Ashley also worked closely with Jon Simcox, a parent at the school and Director at Oppolis Software, to help program the equipment and host the web site.

David Hollywood, Carillon project director, praised the young pupils for showing a confidence way beyond their years.

"The children approached the challenge like true engineers. Their commitment, passion, methodical problem solving and approach to design, testing and installation came through very strongly in their presentation," he said. "My colleagues and I were impressed with not just their grasp of the technology but also with their professional and confident delivery, far beyond their years. This is what great collaboration with schools looks like – children getting excited about building our future hospitals."