Ignite! stories:

Jihad and Juha Islam on CBBC

As a result of their amazing inventiveness, Plymouth based Ignite! awardees Jihad and Juha Islam featured in a creative science and technology CBBC programme.

Their challenge was to invent rooms that contained lots of gadgets and would keep each other out! Here they tell us of their experience:

The name of the CBBC programme we were on was called Whizz Whizz Bang Bang. It was a programme all about how inventive kids make their inventions come to life.

The auditions, which were held in Bristol, were more like a workshop - we were told to play with Lego and they told us to mind map our ideas. Once we were chosen we went up to Scotland. The BBC arranged everything like the travel and accommodation. All the travelling was really tiring but it was worth it.

We didn’t go in the studio much - we were outdoors in the cold working our socks off (!) but when we got to go in the studios they showed us our rooms and what we were going to do. They used studio rooms for the bedrooms on the programme. We went to the BBC Scotland Television Centre, which was a lot of fun. It took six days film it all the way through.

We had lots of one-take wonders - it was great! When they were filming we were nervous but after a while we got over it and we really enjoyed it. The finished product looked great but we thought we look really childish. A lot of our friends thought it looked OK but other people said it was really cheesy.

Our advice to budding TV stars is just be yourself and enjoy it as you’ll never get another chance to do something this amazing!

By Jihad and Juha Islam

Orlaith O’Shauhgnessy, an Ignite! awardee from Belfast also starred in a Whizz Whizz Bang Bang episode.