THREE year 9 Tavistock College students have won an exclusive prize in a recent SMART (Science, Maths and Relevant Techn-ologies) competition.

The prize, which has been funded by the European Union, is an opportunity to visit one of Tavistock Colleges’ partner schools, in Sweden.

The joint project being run across four European countries — Lithuania, France, Sweden and the UK— is aiming to raise the awareness and standard of SMART subjects in there schools using both online and face to face support.

The competition, open to year 9 and year 12 college students, concerned the ability to build a boat that could transport a doll for the greatest distance and the fastest speed while using the least amount of power.

It was judged by students from Sweden and documented by their French and Lithuanian peers.

Tristan Forster, Tavistock’s project lead said: ‘It was a fantastic opportunity for the students of the four countries to get together for the first time in this SMART week, not only did they build some great boats but also some lasting friendships.’

The three winning students were year 9 boys Harry Wilkinson, Tom Gardner and Olli Venning.

The boys will now represent the college in a trip to Sweden next March where they will be judging and documenting the exploits of their Swedish peers in their SMART week.

The boys were supported by resistant materials teacher Rob Moore.