In-tents test for students

SEALED Air, a sponsor of The Hunts Post Business Awards, is also sponsoring first-year architecture students at Cambridge University. Thanks to the company, which makes food packaging, a farmer s field in Thurfield sprouted an usual crop on Sunday night.

SEALED Air, a sponsor of The Hunts Post Business Awards, is also sponsoring first-year architecture students at Cambridge University.

Thanks to the company, which makes food packaging, a farmer's field in Thurfield sprouted an usual crop on Sunday night.

As part of their degree course, 15 teams of students were required to create a tent out of recycled materials each costing less than £40 - but big enough to sleep three people.

The designs, pictured right, at Gray's farm, included a caterpillar made with hula hoops and covered with white sheets and bubble-wrap and a trampoline tent.

Another tent was insulated with human hair gathered from the floor of a hair salon and one had a wood-burning stove inside - also custom-made within the budget.

The first-year students' brief required them to design and build a temporary shelter which would keep them warm and dry and withstand wind and snow.

It had to be suitable for an overnight stay in East Anglia, big enough for three people to sleep in and either have an extra shelter outside or a link with a neighbouring tent to provide a small, protected space.

The brief recommended using ingenuity to borrow and scavenge as an important part of the project.

The creators of the caterpillar tent, Mike Taylor, Antonia Weiss and Benjamin Seidler, managed to obtain 60 metres of bubblewrap from Sealed Air in St Neots, makers of food packaging.