LionHearts Roar to Success With Help From CINEMA 4D
Over 30,000 Students Battle it Out in The LionHeart Challenge 2008
Imagine having less than a day to come up with a great idea, produce complex business plans for it, create pictures of your design, then pitch the whole idea to an expert panel of Judges in a packed hall.
It's a tall order, but that's exactly the task facing the 14-to-15-year-old students taking part in The LionHeart Challenge.
Now in its sixth year, the bar for The LionHeart Challenge was set even higher this time around. In previous years the students had produced pictures of their products for use in their presentations using elementary software. This time in the final stages the students would use CINEMA 4D, MAXON's award-winning 3D modelling, rendering and animation tool, to create virtual mock-ups of their products. No easy task when you consider that the students would have only minutes to learn CINEMA 4D.
MAXON's involvement with the event was to provide the students with CINEMA 4D so they could visualise their ideas. To aid them with this, seasoned teachers from Bolton Technology & Innovation Centre (Bolton TIC) attended together with Liam Stacy, Managing Director of MAXON UK, and James Belsham, Training Manager at MAXON UK. Liam was also selected as a judge for the grand final.
"What amazed me, more than anything, was how quickly the students picked up CINEMA 4D ," said James Belsham, Training Manager at MAXON UK. "When I train professional artists in using CINEMA 4D we can easily spend one day on modelling alone, but the LionHeart students were up and running in 30 minutes of training and had just a couple of hours to actually do the product mock-up."
Winning The LionHeart Challenge is by no means easy.
First came the in-school heats. Here over 30,000 students from schools in every region of England battled it out in teams of ten for the right to represent their school in the next round. Each team delivered their presentation to the Head Teacher, senior staff, business people and fellow students.
The champion school teams then descended on Liverpool on the 9th and 10th of July to take part in the Regional Finals. It was here that the 120 Regional Finalist Teams were first introduced to CINEMA 4D and shown how to use the product by members from Bolton TIC and MAXON. By the end of the day, the judges had selected just 13 Regional Champions to progress to the grand final.
These champions then went head to head in the National Finals, held on 14th July 2008 at St. George's Hall, Liverpool. The winners would take away the prestigious title of LionHeart National Winners 2008, as well as prizes including a CINEMA 4D XL Bundle lab license for the winning school and a student version of CINEMA 4D XL Bundle for each student on the winning team.
The challenge theme for the grand final was kept secret until the last moment: "to conceptualise, design and create a product or device which will become a major aid to 'crime prevention' in the UK."
Two product designers from each of the 13 teams headed off to Bolton TIC to use CINEMA 4D for their second time. Bolton TIC's staff were also on hand to answer questions while the designers set about their work making virtual mock-ups of the designs. Meanwhile the remaining eight members of each team tackled the other aspects of the challenge.
Clare McDonald, Managing Director of The LionHeart Challenge, added: "Students taking part at the 2008 LionHeart Challenge Regional Heats and National Finals were enthralled by the amazing sophistication and flexibility which using CINEMA 4D gave them in production of their virtual product prototypes. The advent of this wonderful new technology at The LionHeart Challenge truly enhanced every team's master plan - and brought their product idea to life!"
By 2 p.m. marks had already been scored for numerous parts of the challenge, and just one task remained: for each team to deliver their Final Presentation - including CINEMA 4D mock-ups - at the Evening Banquet & Awards Ceremony.
Come the evening, St. George's Hall began to fill with each of the champion teams, their teachers, their experts, their judges - all dressed for the black tie event. The hall was packed with some 200 people.
"Particularly impressive was the sheer confidence of the students when they presented their products," said Liam Stacy, National Finals judge and Managing Director of MAXON UK.
"Also inspiring was the quality of work a team of 10 created within the space of a few hours, including financial planning, market research, product prototype design and planning for a slick presentation."
"The LionHeart Challenge was very exciting for us because we were watching young people who for the most part had never touched a 3D tool before. Within the space of a few hours of that the students were then creating products within CINEMA 4D, which is phenomenal in view of the time they were given. It was a pleasure to be at the event."
Sitting on the prestigious judging panel were national figures, the drivers of business and industry, including Liam Stacy, Managing Director of MAXON Computer Ltd.; Simon Topman, Deputy President of the British Chambers of Commerce; Rod Hill, Past National President of the Chartered Institute of Management Consultants; Diane Earles, Regional Director of the Chartered Institute of Marketing; and Helen King, Assistant Chief Constable of Merseyside Police.
Also on the panel were two student judges who were key members from last year's winning teams, Sam Hall from North Chadderton School, Manchester, and Joanna Lawrence from Archbishop Blanch School, Liverpool.
And the winner?
Regents Park Community College took the title of LionHeart National Winners 2008, for their product 'FlashGlass' - a glass for pubs, bars and restaurants that changes colour when an unknown substance is put into the glass.
Three further prizes were awarded for Best Presentation, Best Primary Research and Best Use Of Technology, won by Ulverston Victoria High School, Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School, and Bishop Stopford School respectively.
It was clear to see at the final event that the teams were excited and desperate to win.
Clare McDonald, Managing Director of The LionHeart Challenge, summed up: "The students are very reluctant at first to get involved, but as the challenge progresses, we find that their enthusiasm and commitment to their own Team Project takes wings and flies and they make the wonderful discovery that they have many skills and talents of which they have been completely unaware. By the close of The Challenge, they have an immense feeling of hard work and achievement."
For more information on The LionHeart Challenge visit www.fla.uk.com.
The LionHeart Challenge 2008 Winners
OVERALL WINNER: Regents Park Community College - South East Region
BEST PRESENTATION: Ulverston Victoria High School - Cumbria
BEST PRIMARY RESEARCH: Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School - Lancashire
BEST USE OF TECHNOLOGY: Bishop Stopford School - East Midlands
REGIONAL WINNERS:
The King's Academy - North East Region
Myers Grove School - Yorkshire Region
Bishop Stopford School - East Midlands Region
Sandon Business and Enterprise School - West Midlands Region
The Plume School - Eastern Region
Gunnersbury Catholic School - London Region
Regents Park Community College - South East Region
Sexey's School - South West Region
Ulverston Victoria High School - Cumbria
Archbishop Blanch C of E High School - Merseyside
Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School - Lancashire
Whalley Range 11-18 High School - Manchester
Eaton Bank School - Cheshire and Warrington