The Primary Engineer MacRobert Medal 2024 Award Ceremony

We will be hosting the official award ceremony for the Primary Engineer MacRobert Medal at the Barony Hall in Glasgow. The award recognises the achievements of the people who have turned the ideas of school pupils into reality through the creation of a prototype.

ProtoTeams, who designed these prototypes, will be travelling from Universities and Organisations across the UK for the prestigious event.

The event will open with an exhibition of prototypes where you will get the opportunity to hear from the ProtoTeams who have built these designs. We will open the award ceremony with a keynote speech from the CEO and Founder or Primary Engineer, Dr Susan Scurlock MBE, before we are joined on stage by some special guests to hand out the awards.

A full agenda and speaker details will be sent out to attendees closer to the time, and we would love for our partners and supporters to join us. This event is by invitation only, so if you are unable to attend, please let us know. If you would like to have someone attend in your place, please share their details with us, and we will extend an invitation to them.

What is the Primary Engineer MacRobert Medal?

The Primary Engineer MacRobert Medal was designed to celebrate the achievements of the school pupils, students and young engineers who have all worked together to create these innovative and world changing prototypes. Similar to the MacRobert Award, these medals recognise the innovation and creativity of the next generation of engineers.

24 prototypes were built this year, 17 were shortlisted and 10 will be awarded medals. The judging panel consisted of some of the most senior figures in the engineering industry, who deliberated over every applicant. Gold, Silver and Bronze medals will be handed out at the award ceremony as we celebrate their amazing achievements.

Several of this year's prototypes will be displayed, with the ProtoTeams there to expalin their build and talk about how they worked with the pupil who originated the idea to ensure it was built as closely to their original design as possible.

What is the Leaders Award Competition?

Each year, as part of the Leaders Award Competition, tens of thousands of pupils from the ages of 3-19 answer the question “If you were an engineer, what would you do?”. Pupils are tasked with interviewing an engineer, identifying a problem in the world around them and then coming up with a creative solution to that problem. They create an annotated drawing of their idea and write a letter to an engineer persuading them to select their idea as a winner. Every single idea is graded by professional engineers, and some of our University and Industry partners get the opportunity to turn these ideas into working prototypes.

Public Exhibitions and Award Ceremonies are then held all over the UK to celebrate the pupils who have taken part, before our University and Industry partners select a design to turn into a working prototype.

The Public Vote

Our judges deliberated over each application to make the difficult decision on who gets a Bronze, Silver and Gold Medal, but this year there is something new awarded – The Commendation Medal.

This is awarded to the Prototype the public have selected as their favourite, with voting being held from September to November.

You can see the full list of Medalists and take part in the Public Vote on the Primary Engineer website.

Host or Publisher Primary Engineer