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Up, up and away! The Powering the Future: South Tyneside and Beyond exhibition is open

Phoebe Martin

Launched back in February, the Powering the Future: South Tyneside and Beyond! Challenge hooked the imaginations of children in Year 4 and Year 5 across South Tyneside. Whether inventing using wind or to create renewable energy from movement, they used their imagination to come up with their own unique ways of harnessing power.

After combing through every invention uploaded to our website, a group of judges including Chief Inventor Dominic Wilcox and members of South Tyneside Council and Dogger Bank Wind Farm selected 4 winning ideas. Alongside the winners, 2 additional ideas that representatives from Dogger Bank Wind Farm loved so much were also selected to be brought to life. All of the spectacular inventions are now being exhibited at The Word.

exterior of The Word

A group of brilliant makers teamed up with the child inventors to work on these ideas, injecting new ways of working into the inventions such as animation and model making.

The six inventions are:

child at exhibition

On the 19th of July 2023, the exhibition doors opened and the geniuses behind the ideas stepped through to see their inventions on display.

Amongst the buzzing atmosphere, the children met up with the makers once more, all in joint celebration of witnessing what was once a drawing on paper become a developed idea showcased and celebrated in a public setting. Mayor of South Tyneside, Councillor John Gerard McCabe, took to the stand and shared his praise of the makes, with a special shoutout to Alice and her invention, The Turtle Motorway.

visitors watching video

Never wanting to let the creativity and ideas stop flowing, Little Inventors are also presenting a challenge to the public that you can get involved in. Invent something that generates renewable energy from movement before August 31st and be in with the chance of having your idea brought to life too. Your budding inventor can draw and describe their idea on our worksheet from the comfort of the exhibition and 'post' it to us via the Little Inventors postbox provided!

The exhibition is free and there is no need to book. Visitors can view all six of the prototypes and how they work and learn more about the inventor who came up with the idea. Why not drop by and see first-hand the marvelous talents of children from the North East?

exhibition seats

The exhibition closes Sunday 3 December.

Opening hours are:

Monday to Thursday - 9am to 7pm

Friday - 9am to 5pm

Saturday and Sunday - 10am to 4pm

Powering the Future: South Tyneside and Beyond! has been delivered by Little Inventors in partnership with South Tyneside Council and Dogger Bank Wind Farm.