Over 175 learners at Blythe Bridge High School (Staffordshire, UK) took part in Engineering Discovery for the very first time. Tasked with the challenge to build the tallest possible Radio Tower, supporting a weight at the top, we caught up with one of their facilitators Liam, and students who took part, to find out more!
Liam explained to us that: “Engineering Discovery is such a fun way to ignite the initial interest in the engineering industry. For many, an Engineering Discovery session with Next Engineers may be their very first exposure to the field, and to do so with their peers in a dynamic and high energy setting really gives them an insight to modern engineering – a sector which allows endless creativity to solve the problems that engineers identify and face.
For The Inspirational Learning Group today was our first delivery of the Radio Tower challenge, to be honest I was unsure how easily students participating would rise to the bar. How foolish of me! The dynamism which young people approached their guy ropes was brilliant to see, and their application of the engineering design process with regards to the main tower structure was wonderful. To see designs being adapted and tweaked to reach a refined outcome was brilliant!”
We spoke to Carly who took part in the session about her previous knowledge of engineering before taking place in the session: “My Dad is actually an engineer and works with HGV’s across the midlands. Because of my Dad I already have an interest in engineering and I’m actually doing some work experience with him later this year.”
Given her pre-existing interest in engineering we asked Carly if she had much opportunity to take part in engineering activities in school. “To be honest, this is really different to what I can normally do at school which is great for me! I had no idea how much engineers actually make. Before it was explained to us I just thought that Engineers only really build and fix machinery based things. I didn’t realize some of the more finer objects they are involved in, or that they come up with the initial ideas!”
Jacob also added that, “It’s been really difficult for our team to complete our idea, but we did get there in the end!”. We asked Jacob why it had been so difficult for his team, and how he found the experience, “I think we found it so difficult to do because we normally learn from books in our school lessons. I really liked being creative though and getting to be ‘Hands on’ instead. I’ve really enjoyed the creativity of it!”
If you would like to discuss the Next Engineers initiative further with our team you can contact us directly at nextengineers@tilg.co.uk.
