Young engineering talent from secondary schools in Scotland showcased their projects at Strathclyde University on the 23rd April at the EES Celebration and Assessment Day (CAD).
Teams each of four S5/S6 pupils have been working on sophisticated engineering projects with local companies as part of the EES programme run by the Engineering Development Trust (EDT). The culmination of their projects is a “Celebration and Assessment Day” where the teams were assessed and presented with certificates acknowledging their success in the programme.
In addition to this Merchiston Castle School, Edinburgh, who partnered The University of Edinburgh, were presented with the EES Trophy and a cheque for £250 as the ‘Overall Winning Team’ for their outstanding project results. Their project set for them by the university, was to develop a system to control and receive feedback from a bionic hand, utilise and design an interface that will interact with the human body.
Dr Andrew Firth, Schools Liaison Officer at the University of Edinburgh mentored the team and commented “The team from Merchiston Castle School deserve the highest praise for their work. We presented them with a very challenging project and to produce a working prototype, as they have, is exceptional. This is engineering at its very best.
Trinity High School, Renfrew partnered with Rolls-Royce plc won the runner-up award of £100, donated by Salesjigsaw and presented by George Foster.
Companies supporting the schools and providing the projects were Aggreko Manufacturing, BOC Ltd, ClydeUnion Pumps, Coherent Scotland, Doosan Power Systems, EDF Energy, Heriot-Watt University, Howden, Rolls-Royce plc, Selex Galileo, University of Edinburgh and University of Strathclyde.
Peter Jamieson Senior Principal Engineer at Garrad Hassan was one of the assessors at the event and commented “It was refreshing and inspiring to see what all these young potential engineers had been up to and I felt privileged to have been involved”.
The Engineering Education Scheme enables a team of students to work on an engineering project devised by their partner company. The project will be of real value to the company and the student engineers have the experience of tackling the project in an industry environment. The project takes place over 6 months and involves over 100 hours of work per student including a 2 day period of research and development at a local university.
The Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering at the University of Strathclyde supported the EES in Scotland by hosting the Launch, Workshop and CAD events.
Duncan McSporran Director of the Engineering Development Trust Scotland said, “The quality of the school teams presenting shows the strength of the scheme. It has a defining role in enabling students to take the step from engineering as an interesting idea to a firm career option. The participating companies keep their eyes open for talented students and more than a few EES students have finished up working with the company they partnered on their EES project.”
