The Institution of Civil Engineers’ annual bid to prise children from the classroom and get them onto Alpine slopes has met with great success, thanks in part to support from the Ove Arup Foundation.

A group of graduate engineers and children travelled to Belle Plagne, France, for a week in December with the express intention of packing a lot of fun into solving a programme of classic engineering challenges.

The ICE initiative, which has been running for seven years, is aimed at promoting engineering as a career option to children. This year’s prestige problem-solving competition involved constructing a corrugated plastic mountain with a minimum height of 1.8 metres, and then concocting a method of transporting a marble from the top to the base at the slowest possible rate, and covering a distance of at least 3 metres.

A video of the winning effort, complete with its vast array of engineering solutions developed over the week, can be viewed here.

Organiser Richard Armstrong explained: “We are trying to engage with the children at an early age, showing them that engineering can be fun, and hopefully encouraging some of them to consider it as a career prospect.”

A dedicated website for the event can be found at http://icecooleng.ning.com

Plans are already underway for a December 2010 event, in Saas Fee, Switzerland.