A team of county apprentices have secured a place in the WorldSkills Nationals after designing and building an electric wheelchair from scratch. Belinda Nightingale from Telford, Chloe Millington from Bridgnorth and Tom Mills from Shrewsbury, all 19-year-old Shrewsbury Colleges Group Engineering apprentices at Ricoh, were set the brief to design and manufacture an electric wheelchair.
The Nationals will be taking place at Birmingham NEC in November, when the team will have to rebuild their wheelchair from scratch under the watchful eyes of judges. They will also be given a team challenge, which will be set on the day. The three-day event will be wrapped up with an awards ceremony to congratulate the winners.
Chloe says, “I’m nervous, but I believe we have a really good chance of doing well. We did loads of research and went through three designs before we got to this prototype. We’re even building another prototype before the competition – trying to make sure everything on the wheelchair is the best design it can be.”
