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Clare started Brunel's Urban Scholars programme when she was 12 years old. Initially indifferent, before long she was clearly enjoying herself. "We got to do microchemistry which was well fun", she said: "We'd never be able to do that in my school because the equipment would just die in two seconds: our chemistry class is quite violent."
She added: "You get to do stuff here you would never ever do in school, like build robots." Her first attempt ended unequivocally in failure: "The motor was the wrong way round, then the motors didn't work... it just went very wrong so many times."
Undaunted, Clare went on to build a robot at home, despite losing the instructions. She is now studying for five science A levels: "I just can't choose what ones to do, so I'll do all of them! And I need physics and maths for the university course I want to do, which is Cybernetics and Artificial Intelligence at Reading."
To find out more about how Brunel Urban Scholars is helping Clare and hundreds of other gifted students, click here.
