Biography of a Brat

Abstract

This is an account of the exploits of three fifth year pupils from Blessed Edward Oldcorne School, Worcester, and their 1980 School Design Prize winning entry, the BRAT. BRAT is an acronym for Bell Ringing Automatic Timer, although, when the project was started no specific name was in mind.

BRAT, another example of necessity being the mother of invention, is the brain child of Nicholas Ash, Adrian Trace and Michael Holloway, and is an electronic system for ringing the school bells, at prescribed times, automatically. Prior to the installation of BRAT the school bells were rung manually by a senior pupil with an accurate wrist watch. Although this system was adequate, within limits, there was a time factor involved, 42 minutes per day, in ringing the bells manually. This represented some 10'h% of each school day being lost to the pupil and over an academic year this amounted to 3.8 weeks lost.

Nicholas Ash was the one responsible for bell ringing and feeling that he was missing valuable lesson time he set out to find a suitable alternative persuading Adrian and Michael to join him in his quest.