St Philomena’s Catholic School for Girls Gym Design Project

History

We met Tunde Orelaja many years ago when he was Head Surveyor for Barratt East London, working on the construction of numerous new residential developments in East London.

He was an immediate inspiration to us. A strong character with fresh ideas and a no-nonsense approach to work, he was a keen fitness fan himself and an all round good guy.

Tunde played a key role in the growth of our Gym Design area of the business, with his passion for health & fitness and commercial awareness, he saw the clear benefits for adding gyms to many of the developments he was working on and subsequently we fitted 7 gyms for Barratt East London.

After a move from Barratt to Berkeley Homes, Tunde decided to make a career change. He trained to become a Design & Technology Teacher and took his first placement at St. Philomena’s Catholic School for Girls in Carshalton.

We always knew he would be a fantastic teacher and make an impact on any school he worked in. Not long after starting, he was on the phone to many of his friends in business, persuading them to get involved in projects in his school.

The motive8 Project Brief – Phase 1

Nick and Layla went to present to all the children to educate them about the company and set them the following project brief:

• To design & make a ‘Gym Cleaning Station’ for motive8 residential gym facilities • The station will need to encompass a spray bottle filled with cleaning solution, towel dispenser, hand sanitizer, waste disposal unit and maximum branding opportunities

Progress Presentations – Phase 2

We visited the students to see how they were progressing. This time they presented their models to us and we had the chance to give them some constructive feedback.

We were nicely surprised by the interpretation of the project brief and the hard work that had gone into all the presentations and models.

We left them with some food for thought on various aspects such as; cost, branding, materials used, wall fixing etc…

Final Presentations - Phase 3

We returned to St. Phillomena’s to watch and listen to a 3 minute presentation from each group demonstrating their final models.

We assessed each group on the following criteria; product practicality, costings, feasibility, branding/design and response to previous feedback and presentation skills – then took the highest overall score to select the winners.

Presenting to a group is always daunting, especially in front of peers and new people from outside of the school, so the girls had a hard task on their hands.

It was clear that most of the groups had taken on the feedback we gave them on our last visit and their products displayed many technical developments, with much more detail to cost and branding.

We were amazed how the projects differed from each other, and also the detail that some of the groups had gone into. It’s always very difficult in these situations to select a winner and we needed to keep thinking back to our residential gyms and the feasibility of actually using one of these concepts in them.

Overall, we were extremely impressed by the work that was produced and after a long discussion back at the office we came up with a winning team from each class.

The Winners! – Phase 4

Following a very tough judging process, motive8 Managing Director, Nick Sadler, returned to the school to present the winning teams with their well-deserved prizes.

The girls each received a motive8 voucher for a pair of Asics trainers. We’re hoping this inspires them to stay active over their summer break from school!