Instead Of An A-Star For Your GCSE Project, How About An Award

May 1st, 2008 Posted in News

Young people really are the people of tomorrow, who says the future is bleak?! It seems that there are some bright young stars shining above the rest, with one of the young stars winning an Award for her GCSE project! Ruth Amos, from Sheffield, designed and created a new device to help people using stair lifts. This simple horizontal hand rail, which is attached to the wall or banister serves as a useful purpose for people to hold onto when climbing up or down the stairs.

The StairSteady rail was presented at the Naidex 2008 annual disability event held at Birmingham. Ruth was inspired to create the device after talking to her teacher, whose father had recently suffered from a stroke. This in turn sparked an idea to use this device for other people with disabilities.

This was initially developed for a GCSE project, which she had produced with her teacher. Both decided to design something that would help her teacher’s father stay more active and help him manoeuvre with some ease. Little did she know that this would be turned into her own award winning invention.

It was entered into the Young Engineer for Britain competition which saw her victory in winning the prize. She has since developed her own company and is looking to sell the StairSteady rail to people who are in need of it. She comments, “Our product will fit any width of stairs and it’s also low-cost”. The product will be sold for £329, which will include all costs of fitting, as this is designed to lock up when weight and pressure is added to it.

Ruth will be spending the next couple of years running and selling the product before embarking upon studying at University.