CREST Awards: a global Award for overseas students

Did you know that CREST Awards are available outside of the UK? That means international students can also apply for CREST Awards to enhance their university or job applications.

Donnie, a 19-year old student from China recently earned his Gold CREST Award. 

Following his involvement with CREST, Donnie then received an offer to move to the UK to study engineering at the University of Cambridge. Outside of his studies, Donnie is a keen frisbee player but he struggled to train when COVID restrictions meant he couldn’t meet up with friends. 

This experience inspired his Gold CREST project – a frisbee-catching machine! Donnie’s impressive invention catches the frisbee in a large net, then drops it onto a conveyor belt. When the frisbee lands on the belt, its wheels are activated, which spin and launch the frisbee back to the player.

The design of Donnie’s machine was inspired by basketball and tennis training machines, meaning you don’t need a second person to practice your frisbee throwing and catching techniques!  

Donnie built a functioning prototype of his machine and wrote an essay for his Gold Award, outlining the whole process of designing and building his machine.

Donnie spoke to us about how he used the skills and knowledge he developed while working towards his Award in his application to study at Cambridge, how he engaged the admissions board in his interview, and his advice to fellow students.

“I was able to come up with some insightful conclusions in my personal statement that I gained when writing the [CREST] essay,” Donnie said.

He explained how working on the essay strengthened his understanding of his project – understanding that he could then impart in his personal statement: 

By outlining the entire process, and focusing on technical details when I was writing the essay, I have a deeper understanding about methods and experience that I accumulated which might be replicated in future projects.

He continued:

Mathematical model of frisbee flights and a detailed construction experience were crucial parts of my personal statement.

This went a long way in helping him stand out, Donnie said, and in a competitive process like applying for university, especially highly selective institutions, such as the University of Cambridge, standing out is everything.

It is not common for high school students to possess real life engineering experience and apply theoretical knowledge to practical examples.

For some university courses, the UCAS form is just the first step in the process – it’s followed by an interview with the admissions board.

This can be a daunting experience for students, but knowing you have a top-quality project to talk about can take away some of the nerves Donnie told us, as can the skills developed through the process of working on the project. The interview panel asked Donnie “several interesting questions“ about his CREST project.

The most important change on me was the mindset alternation. I learned to face challenges calmly and try to analyse the problem instead of rushing to an answer. This growth mindset really allowed me to perform positively during the interview.

I would definitely say that the project impressed the professor who interviewed me since he was really curious about the structure of the machine. What’s more, the problem-solving strategy I learned during the project worked successfully when I was trying to solve a physics question in the interview.

What advice would Donnie give to other students thinking about doing a CREST project and earning an Award?

Start working on your project and essay as soon as possible. It may take a tremendous amount of time to experiment with your machines or research. To prevent the potential time conflict in the summer holiday before the formal application, it is a good idea to have something done in previous months.