YOUNG entrepreneurs showed they had a head for business when they won a college competition to create a new product for a Christmas market.

Interactive Media students, Callum Goodsell, Richard Day and Bradley Edwards, known as Snow Viper, won first prize in the Enterprise Event with their invention of a foldable sledge named Riot Rider.

The two-day challenge, which is loosely based on a Dragon’s Den theme, involved scores of students working in groups to design a Christmas item, before working out a business plan in order to win support for their ideas.

Business experts from across the Tees Valley gave up their time to advise and support the students before five were nominated as finalists at the end of the two-day challenge.

Richard, 16, of Guisborough, said: “Our invention is basically a sledge that can also be used as a shield for snowball fights or paintballing and it folds up, so it can easily be carried home on your back.”

Bradley, also 16 and of Guisborough, added: “The sledge is made of fibreglass and hard plastic and should cost about £6 to make, but we planned to sell it for £19.99, so we felt our business plan worked.

The dragons kept us talking in our presentation, which was a good sign, but we had no idea we would win until they called out our names.”

And Callum, 17, of Skelton, said: “We were really pleased to win the challenge. We got great feedback during our presentation, so we felt good about our invention. We’ve really enjoyed the event.”

All of the winners and runners up of the competition, which was organised by Redcar and Cleveland College, received cash prizes for their efforts.