Engineering Workshop

Year 9 pupil Ciara recently joined nearly a hundred other students at the University of Portsmouth for a four-day residential engineering workshop organised by the Smallpeice Trust, an independent educational charity which promotes engineering as a career, and sponsored by the University of Portsmouth.

This unique learning experience gave students the opportunity to learn about engineering through a series of presentations and practical hands-on workshops.

In teams, students worked on 'real-life' challenges organised by young engineers from BMW, Jaguar Land Rover, Rolls Royce and the University's engineering department, who led a project where students had to design, build and then fly a model hot air balloon that would be able to carry a small cargo of food (sweets!). BMW, Jaguar Land Rover and Rolls Royce developed car projects where students had to design, build and test vehicles which had to negotiate a number of different obstacles and complete a series of tasks. Students also enjoyed watching a series of presentations.

During the four days, students not only developed engineering skills but also life skills such as team work, communication, problem solving, time management, finance and presenting.

There was also a first day project for all the Smallpeice students - 'the tallest tower challenge where students were required to build a tall, stable tower from only 50 cardboard tubes and sticky tape - this resulted in some interesting and impressively tall designs.