THE floodgates have opened for a young Lancaster engineer who has plugged into a top award with his unique gadget.

Jack Tovey beat more than 1,000 other young designers with his flood plug' device to secure third place at an international science and engineering fair in the USA.

The 17-year-old from Halton flew to America last week with young delegates from 46 countries - returning home with $1,000 in prize money.

The lower sixth student at Lancaster Royal Grammar School invented his winning device a year and won the title Young Engineer of Britain 2003 with it.

The automated flood-prevention device for house ventilation systems has been patented and a company is interested in developing it for mass production.

Jack stands to receive royalties for every plug sold.

"I didn't really know what to expect with this competition because it was so much larger than the UK one," says Jack.

"The projects were very different in that most of them were designs on paper, unlike mine which is a working prototype, so I was unsure whether the judges would be impressed luckily they were! "

Jack's technology teacher Sion Rands says the youngster has successfully combined engineering know-how with business shrewdness to produce a device with huge market potential.