Time is running out to submit entries for school-science competition the Bright Spark Awards.

To stand a chance of being selected for the Dragon’s Den-style awards ceremony, projects must be registered online by noon on Friday, May 31.

The awards encourage teams of pupils to use cross-curricular skills in science, technical, engineering and maths (Stem) subjects, and are open to primary and secondary schools across Kent and the south-east.

One project that has already been registered involves a high-tech forest-fire detector developed by pupils at Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys in Canterbury.

It came out of a partnership with Bright Spark judging organisation BAE Systems.

Project team member Mohammad Tahan said: “We were very lucky to have an opportunity to work with BAE Systems, and they supplied us with a brief, which was to design a product with sensors in, which could be deployed in hard-to-reach areas to detect wood fires.”

Collaborator Lucy Bone-Knell said the device was powered by solar energy and incorporated an early-warning app to warn people before fires got out of control.

And fellow pupil Luke Mallett added: “The premise behind our design is that it’s dropped out of a helicopter and the propeller slows it down. When it reaches the ground, elastic inside will take in some of the impact as well.”

Any other schools that would like to enter the Bright Spark Awards need to register details of their projects online before noon on May 31.

Shortlisted teams will present their work at a Dragons’ Den-style awards ceremony at the Sandwich premises of Bright Spark judge Discovery Park.

The other judges include Atkins Global, Megger, the ITL Group, EduKit, Highways England, Pfizer, Kent Renewable Energy and Golding Vision.

Find out more and register projects at kmcharityteam.co.uk/brightspark.

And watch a video about the forest fire detector here: