Talented Sixth Form students have taken the first steps on the path to an engineering career after designing and creating two innovative products as part of a national project.
Twelve AS Physics students from Highfields nurtured their talents as part of the prestigious Engineering Education Scheme.
The six-month scheme is run by the Engineering Development Trust and allows small teams from different schools to take part in designing, building and presenting an engineering project that could be of significant use to a local engineering company.
The students were split into two teams and have designed a Remote Handling Device for nuclear waste and an Adjustable Flow Distribution Chamber for sewage works.
They were sponsored by Ansaldo NES Nuclear Engineering, based in Bilston, and Shifnal based MMB Engineering.
As part of the project, students had weekly meetings with engineers from their sponsor companies and also took part in a two-day residential at Wolverhampton University’s Engineering Campus in Telford, where they were able to start building prototypes. This has qualified them for the Gold CREST award, Britain’s largest national award scheme for project work in the STEM subjects.
The project culminated with the National Celebration and Assessment Day, where around 50 teams of budding engineers set up stands to display their projects and presented their work to a panel of judges, comprising of business directors and engineers.
Mr A Dean, Head of Mathematics & Science Learning School, said: “At the event, directors from both Ansaldo and MMB expressed their enthusiasm to continue to work with Highfields in the future.”
“Both teams had a great day. They were all awarded certificates following their presentation and after fielding some probing questions from the judges at their display stand.”
The EES was established in 1984 and was developed to respond to a chronic shortage of young people in the UK choosing to enter STEM professions with the requisite skills and experience.
The mission of the EDT is to encourage as many young people as possible within the UK to consider entering a STEM profession and gives students in Year 12 the chance to develop skills, including team working, project management, report writing and presentation skills. Over the past 30 years, the scheme has worked with over 3,000 companies which have linked together with more than 30,000 students.
