Our Sports of the Future competition ran in April and May as part of our Engineer a Better World campaign. We encouraged children to use their imagination to create a new sport or invention to make existing sport even better!We had plenty of innovative and clever ideas from robots you can play football with, to a gun that fires chicken nuggets at athletes to keep them sustained. Some entries were even inspired by social distancing restrictions, including the ‘Squennis Ball’ that automatically returns to you, allowing you to play tennis without a partner, and social distancing trainers that light up if you’re within two metres of someone else.


Our 13-year-old winner, Charlotte Geary, came up with an innovative way to make skaters go faster and do more tricks without ever having to take their feet off the board. Her design kick-flipped her into first place and now her idea has been turned into a model prototype, as part of the prize.


The judging panel, which included Cavendish, IET President Peter Bonfield and IET Young Woman Engineer of the Year Ying Wan Loh, awarded second place to nine-year-old Isabella Watson-Gandy from London with ‘Boing Boots’ that would give her an extra spring in her step to play basketball with her older brother. The third spot went to nine-year-old Brunner Hahn, also from London, who designed a door that could be converted into a table tennis set.


Overall winner, Charlotte Geary said: “The Sports of the Future competition seemed like a massive opportunity to put an invention I had been coming up with for a while into action. The whole idea behind it is a motor-powered, multi-directional skateboard. I named this the Electrodeck. When I found out I actually won, I was speechless. Hundreds of people enter these kinds of competitions all the time and so you never expect to be the one who actually wins!”


You can see the news story video on Newsround online!