A SAVVY student has led his own team to design a new leisure centre for a national engineering competition.

Will McConchie, of Hawthorn Avenue, has spent the past six months working on a detailed proposal of a splash pool within a leisure centre, which will eventually be developed into a working model.

The 17-year-old led a team of four other students from Abbey College, in Manchester, and a group from engineering consultants ARUP Manchester to solve the real-life engineering problem.

They focused on how temperature and lighting play an important role in building design, and presented their findings to the Engineering Development Trust (EDT) at the end of a three-day residential at the University of Liverpool.

Will, who studies maths, geography and physics at A-level, said: “We worked incredibly well as a team and really took on board what the engineers were teaching us.

“It has been a great experience and is very rewarding seeing our ideas considered in a real-life situation.”

The project, which is part of the EDT’s Engineering Education Scheme, saw students given engineering problems put forward by real companies, to give an experience of engineering as a career.

They worked through the process of planning, development, construction, testing and report writing, and Will’s team demonstrated its own solutions with prototype models.

The team is now waiting to hear if its project has won this year’s contest, with his college having already won in 2015, before finishing as runner-up last year.

Liz Elam, principal at Abbey College, added: “Will is a very intelligent young man who has shown he is a born leader.

“This is a great initiative as the students are gaining experience from real-life engineers. It has really helped develop their confidence, communication and leadership skills.

“The team underwent steep learning curves but coped well with developing new skills quickly.”