A SCHOOLBOY has seen one of his inventions brought to life after winning an engineering competition.

Felsted School pupil, Toby Stringer, invented the electricity trampoline while in Year 6, as part of a STEM project.

The invention won the Primary Engineer Young Leaders Award and Kingston University has been developing it into a functioning energy converter.

Toby, 11, said: “Visiting Kingston was an amazing experience and it was incredible to see my trampoline idea come to life.

"I couldn’t quite believe how much detail the circuits contained.

"I want to keep coming up with ideas to solve big world problems and hopefully one day I will be an engineer.”

Toby, joined by a few of his Year 7 classmates, had the opportunity to see the production of his design and meet head of faculty, David Utton, who had taken the design from paper to reality.

The pupils had a chance to jump on the trampoline, which used six laser engraved power generators to convert energy to electricity.

The budding young engineers were also given an inspiring tour of the engineering, technology and computing faculty.

In the 3D printing room, pupils learnt about all the different grades of printing, from made to measure titanium hip replacements, to the opportunities to print houses on Mars in the future.

They also visited a wind tunnel with winds up to 90 km/hr and had the opportunity to sit in the cockpit of a real Lear jet and learn about its operating mechanisms, as well as experiencing a real flight simulator.

William Harding, design, technology and engineering teacher at Felsted, said: “It is vital that pupils understand that a career in design and engineering can be exciting and often incredibly rewarding.

"Toby is a great example of why pupils should think big and not limit themselves by current technology, but to push the boundaries and question what could be possible."