Shaft - there's a whole host of reasons for this. Ever declining numbers of practicals in school science. Ever more boring practicals. School workshops now being Design and Technology where they all do arty images for marketing furniture rather than a year carving wood & cutting metal.
At one school, my teaching colleague had helped design the brakes on Concorde, and our technician had built sonar systems for Marconi and designed some of the largest chimneys in Europe. We did proper practical work - interesting, new, fun stuff. We entered one competition for earthquake-resistant buildings. At lunchtime the Judging Professor took us into his Civil Engineering department and told us our 4th years (Grade 10) had made better designs than his Second Year Honours students.