When Millie Childs tries to read, the words don't stay still. They swim across the page, blur together, and leave her with headaches so severe they make her feel sick. It's a daily reality for the 11-year-old from Salford — and for roughly one in ten people across the UK who live with dyslexia.
But Millie decided to do something about it. At the age of eight, while a pupil at Light Oaks Junior School, she began sketching out an idea: a pair of glasses with colour-changing lenses that could reduce the visual stress that makes reading so punishing for dyslexic people.
Three years later, that sketch has become a working prototype, a gold medal, and a genuine prospect of changing lives.
From classroom to competition
Millie's breakthrough came through Primary Engineer, a national STEM competition that invites pupils aged 3 to 19 to identify real-world problems and design creative solutions. Her entry — "Rainbow Glasses" featuring interchangeable coloured lenses — stood out among more than 70,000 submissions.
Engineers at Thales UK, based in Cheadle, Greater Manchester, selected Millie's design to develop into a working prototype. Over seven months, they researched, planned, built and tested an LED-based solution that allows the lenses to shift between red, green, and blue depending on the user's needs. The team even consulted researchers at the University of Georgia during development.
The result earned Millie a Gold Award in the Primary Engineer MacRobert Medal — the sister award to the Royal Academy of Engineering's most prestigious prize.
"My dyslexia has always made reading a challenge, so I wanted to invent something that could make it easier," Millie said. "Seeing the engineers turn my idea into real glasses has been incredible. The thought that they might one day help other people with dyslexia is something I'm really proud of."
The science behind the colour
The idea isn't as fanciful as it might sound. Visual stress — sometimes known as Meares-Irlen syndrome — is a well-documented condition in which high-contrast text appears to move, shimmer, or blur on the page. For many dyslexic readers, coloured overlays and tinted lenses have been shown to ease these symptoms and improve reading comfort.
Dyslexia Scotland, the national charity based in Stirling, acknowledges that many people with dyslexia "find high contrasting text and background colours uncomfortable to read, as it seems to distort the text or cause it to appear to move." The charity recommends coloured overlays and adjusted screen settings as practical tools — but notes that finding the right colour for each individual is key.
In Scottish classrooms, where roughly one in ten pupils may be affected, the potential impact is enormous. Organisations including CALL Scotland already promote assistive technology for dyslexic learners, but affordable, personalised glasses that children could wear throughout the school day would represent a significant step forward.
What comes next
Millie, now a Year 7 pupil at Co-op Academy Swinton, has already attracted attention beyond the competition circuit. At the prototype's unveiling, a member of the NHS expressed interest in whether the glasses could be developed further — a tantalising hint at a future beyond the classroom.
Her mum, Sarah, has watched the journey unfold with a mixture of pride and emotion. "I've seen how dyslexia has really affected her — really horrendous headaches, sickness, words constantly moving around," she said. "I think it's going to change people's lives if I'm honest."
Millie's former teacher, Rob Entwistle, who collected the award on her behalf in London, put it simply: "Watching her idea grow from a drawing into a working prototype has been inspiring."
Engineering runs in the family — Millie's grandad was an engineer, and she has always wanted to follow in his footsteps. Now she hopes to secure enough funding to bring Rainbow Glasses to market and put them in the hands of people who need them most.
At eleven years old, Millie Childs looked at a problem that affects millions, and instead of accepting it, she designed a solution. The rest of us could learn something from that.
