Alloa pupil wins top three in national civil engineering competition

Ava formed a solo team, dubbed ‘Avtopia’, and beat teams of up to four pupils from across the UK.

Upon receiving her award, Ava said, “I have learned many skills while doing the CityZen project and got to find out more about different jobs within civil engineering. I enjoyed it so much that I forgot it was a competition! Thank you to the ICE for such a great experience, I’m excited to build my skills in engineering further and hopefully have a career in it one day!”

Ava’s top three place came from a fierce competition between 333 teams from throughout the UK. As a winner, she was awarded a gift card and the opportunity for a guided visit of a civil engineering site in Scotland.

The ICE CityZen Pollution Control Challenge for 14-to-16-year-olds helps young people understand the positive impact of civil engineers. Students are challenged to solve a river pollution problem by researching the causes. Players explore the environmental, social, financial, and political aspects of civil engineering.

The ICE CityZen Award, which encourages more young people to study civil engineering at university or apprenticeship level, is a two-stage competition for 16-to-18-year-olds. In the first stage, students compete in the ICE CityZen online game which involves overcoming a series of civil-engineering-inspired challenges. For example, students must explore the carbon footprint and sustainability of each choice they make in the game, whilst also considering budget requirements and community needs.

In the second stage, students apply their learning by identifying a problem in their local area and suggesting a solution. They then present this idea in a video Project Pitch. Previous winners have suggested everything from redesigning traffic patterns to address road congestion at school pick-up times to regenerating a coal power plant.

Since its inception in 2021, over 4,500 young people have taken part in the ICE CityZen Award with an additional 1,200 entering the Pollution Control Challenge.

Matt Lancashire, the ICE’s Scotland regional director, said: “Ava’s win marks the fourth year running that pupils from Scotland have taken home a top prize from the ICE CityZen Competition, showing that there’s rich interest in the topic amongst young people. It’s important that we continue to nurture this talent into the next generation of civil engineers.”