Little Inventors: Call for Sunderland's young creative minds to submit weird and wonderful inventions

Budding inventors from Sunderland are being called upon to play their part in an energy-saving project.
Sunderland-born artist and inventor Dominic WilcoxSunderland-born artist and inventor Dominic Wilcox
Sunderland-born artist and inventor Dominic Wilcox

A spin off from the Little Inventors project, The Little Inventors Pioneers Energy Challenge is a free initiative funded by Arts Council England to get children aged 8-12 across the North East to think up ideas to generate energy, save energy or use energy better.

Ideas can be submitted online, then 15 young people from Sunderland, Tees Valley and Northumberland will be chosen to work with the Little Inventors team, professional makers and designers, who will help turn their inventions from idea to reality for an exhibition in Tees Valley in summer 2020.

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Originally a Cultural Spring commission in Sunderland in late 2015, Little Inventors, which asked young people across the city to submit inventions which were turned into reality, is now internationally acclaimed, including working with the Canadian Space Agency among others.

The project was the brainchild of Sunderland-born inventor Dominic Wilcox said: “The world has many challenges and problems to solve and we need lots more creative and inventive thinkers to solve them. Children in the North East are fantastically creative and it’s vital that they are supported and encouraged to keep their creative spirit into adulthood.

“Energy is such an important part of our future and we need to work out how to create more of it and reduce the waste of energy. The North East is the ideal location for this ambitious programme because of its rich history and innovation in the field of energy development. We're really honoured that the Arts Council England are supporting this amazing project to inspire and challenge the children of the North East to solve one of the big challenges of the 21st century.”

Last year, Little Inventors’ North 2030 project was part of the Great Exhibition of the North. Over 2,000 ideas were submitted and 17 were featured in a major exhibition in the Discovery Museum, Newcastle.

And five invention models from the Inventors! project in Sunderland in 2016 are now in the permanent collection at the V&A Museum.

For more information visit pioneers.littleinventors.org