Awards for young innovator

The Manufacturing Engineering student at South Eastern Regional College (SERC) received runner-up at the inaugural BEST Awards and followed this up by winning two awards at the prestigious Sentinus Young Innovators award ceremony, the largest Science Fair in Northern Ireland which took place at the Odyssey arena.

Jordan wowed judges to take the 2013 ‘Invest Northern Ireland Award for Commercial Potential’ and securing runner-up in the ‘Northern Ireland Young Engineers’ category, for his innovative product in Air Spring Redesign.

The idea behind the innovative system came about through an educational partnership with the Engineering team at AB Pneumatics and SERC.

Jordan’s challenge was to reverse engineer their existing process, and speed up the cycle time, while focusing on Health and Safety. Initial tests have showed an improvement of three seconds per cycle, speeding up production and ultimately increasing overall output.

Kieran McKenna, Head of School for Engineering at SERC commented; “This is a fantastic achievement for Jordan. To win one award is a fantastic achievement but to follow this up a number of weeks later with another two major awards is nothing short of remarkable. Jordan is a first class student and fully deserves this recognition.

“The system is a fantastic innovation and definitely a product with commercial value. His success is a testament of his commitment to the course and the efforts of his course tutor and mentor Brendan Merrigan.”

SERC Principal and Chief Executive Ken Webb added: “I would like to congratulate Jordan on his awards. This is a fantastic achievement as he was competing against some of the top young innovators from across the province.”