Stroud Venturers Head For The Arctic

Published on Thursday May 10 2007

Four Venturers from Stroud Woodcraft Folk are on their way to the Arctic after beating out 2,000 teams to win a national competition with their plans for a simple device to reduce the amount of CO2 we all pump into the environment every day.

Isabelle Ellis-Cockcroft, Verity Herniman, Grian Councer and Hallam Robinson, all aged 15 and together known as HVGI (their initials, and it also stands for Hopefully Very Good Invention), created the ENUFFometer, a device that allows you to measure, monitor and remotely control all the electrical equipment in your home or workplace.

Taking information from a set of smart plugs installed around the building, a remote data readout device can tell the homeowner how much electricity is being used and what is using it, and turn off any item remotely. The central control can also calculate the amount of energy being used and its cost, in terms of money and of CO2 output.

“Our product is special because it is unique,” the team says. There are other products available that can do part of what ENUFF can do but no one has yet seen the benefits of putting all this available technology together. For example, there are products that will monitor the combined energy being used by your house. But these can't tell you which devices are using what and they can't remotely control anything.”

The group entered their idea into Ice Edge, a national practical education competition to invent an eco-friendly product. They were one of the very few entrants who didn’t come from a school, but nevertheless they were shortlisted and travelled to London’s Imperial College to present their ideas in front of a panel of experts.

“Their very visual, interactive and humorous presentation, using balloons to demonstrate the amount of pollution produced using everyday appliances, won the day and the jubilant four reeled in disbelief as the announcement of their success was read out,” said Mandy Bell, of Stroud Woodcraft Folk.

The prize for the 12 successful teams is an all-expenses-paid trip to the Svalbard islands, halfway between Norway and the North Pole, and then onwards into the ice pack aboard a ship. The trip,