Category: Leaders Awards

Are you an engineer? Inspire the next generation of engineers by signing up to be part of the Leaders Award competition

Author joshuawarren | Posted on

The Leaders Award ‘If You Were An Engineer…’ competition regional awards will again be hosted this year at UWE’s School of Engineering Building, and you can become a part. The competition asks school children from across the country to imagine and design creative solutions to problems, as if they were an engineer. The designs are then judged (right here at UWE!) and the winners are invited to the awards ceremony and celebration taking place this summer.

A large part of the ‘If you were an engineer, what would you do?’ competition is having school pupils interviewing real engineers and enabling them to ask the questions that matter to them. These interviews provide an opportunity for engineers to share how they use creative problem solving in their work and inspire the pupils to find their own engineering ideas.  This leads the pupils to then design their own engineering solutions to problems and submit their ideas to the competition.

The Leaders Award team are asking for real engineers to become a part of the process and sign up to be interviewed online by pupils from across the region. Giving you the opportunity to inspire the next generation of engineers and also develop communication and outreach skills.

Young people cannot be what they cannot see. Being able to engage with engineering and learn that anyone can grow up to work in the industry can have a profound effect on them. So, if you want to be involved and help inspire the next generation of engineers get in touch today!

As recognition of your involvement, the Leaders Award team will welcome you as a Primary Engineer ‘Engineer Inspirer’, and will support your involvement and provide you with recognition of engagement for your own professional development.

There’s an information flyer you can download below.

Engineer-Leaders-Award-Competition-FlyersDownload

For more information or to register interest, visit the website here, or email either engineeringourfuture@uwe.ac.uk or louisa.parsons@primaryengineer.com

Plans for prototype invention revealed at children’s award ceremony

Author louisacockbill | Posted on

On Friday 5th June, UWE Engineers revealed early plans to turn a young person’s winning design into reality.

The Leaders Award is a nationwide engineering competition (run by Primary Engineer) for young people to design inventions to solve a problem. UWE Engineering is one of the Leaders Awards partners in the South West of England and hosted this years exhibition of distinction shortlisted, highly commended & winning designs.

During the Awards ceremony, Hollie Lewis, Lecturer in Sustainable Project Management, presented plans for a UWE team to build last year’s winner Elliot James’ design, the “Smart shower”. Hollie is heading up the “Proto team” which includes Electronics Mechatronics Technical Team Leader, Steve Regester and Engineering Students: Erika Aiwekhoe, Ruth Cockroft and Naing Tun.

120 people attended the celebration event to congratulate the winners and take a look at the activities UWE Engineering’s Inspire Sustainability team had to offer. The exhibition remained up the following day for the Family Fun day, where over 900 people visited and took part in a whole range of hands-on activities.

Hollie Lewis, Proto-team lead, alongside Elliot James, inventor
Hollie presents at the Awards Ceremony
Award winners & their families viewed the competition exhibition
Elliot James and his proud family

“Smart Shower”

Last year, Elliot James, pupil at St Katherine’s sixth form, won the prize for best Year 12 design – you can see his original “SMARTH” – SMART Bath – design below. The UWE proto-team have adapted this design and are starting to build the Smart shower.

Elliot James Leaders Award design won the Year 12 category in 2023

More prototypes!

Engineers from GKN, headed up by Ian Gent, Research Engineer in Composites, also revealed a prototype machine that purifies water.

Dean of Engineering, Ramin Amali expressed at the Awards Ceremony how wonderful it is to have so many local young people participating in this Engineering competition and having their designs turned into a reality!

Engineering’s Family Fun Day

Author louisacockbill | Posted on

Over 900 people across the city were welcomed into UWE Engineering last Saturday to explore a range of different science and engineering activities. It was a wonderful day and we’ve had loads of great feedback. Watch the video to get an insight into the day.

Activities included:

  • Planetarium show called ‘We Make our Future‘ about how we can use human ingenuity and engineering skills to make a brighter future for our planet (the Inspire Sustainability team commissioned this show which Explorer Dome created and took to COP26 as well as into loads of local schools)
  • Flight and Driving Simulators – two very popular activities provided by UWE’s Digital Gallery
  • Robot building experience – was constantly surrounded by kids and adults alike building and coding Lego robots
  • Immersion in Bristol Minecraft worlds – everyone headed up the stairs to design changes to their city in the digital worlds
  • Physics in the Freezer – David Williams provided an awesome show with liquid nitrogen and magnets
  • Wind Turbine activity – some examples of wind turbine blade designs can be seen below – who could generate the most electricity?
  • Anibotics – families flocked to the animations and free giveaways David Smee and his team had on offer
  • Eco-House – Deborah Adkins had her wonderfully interactive Eco-houses on display
  • The Tinker Table – children loved getting hands on using tools to tear apart all the broken down electrical items donated as part of the UWE’s MAKERS repair cafe

Invitation to be wowed by local budding engineers

Author louisacockbill | Posted on

The Leaders Award competition challenges children of all ages – Reception to Year 12 – to invent solutions to problems they see in the world.

UWE Bristol is the Leaders Award’s partner for South West England. And we’re looking forward to celebrating those local inventions at an exhibition in UWE Engineering – South West Regional Awards Ceremony on Friday 5th July.

Local Engineers are invited to attend the Awards Ceremony and view the exhibition of shortlisted designs.

Get TIckets for Awards Ceremony here

And the exhibition will stay up for UWE Engineering’s Family Fun day on Saturday 6th July. So if you want to bring your family, please grab some tickets.

Find out more & reserve your place

UWE hosts local industry leaders to judge children’s inventions

Author louisacockbill | Posted on

The Leaders Award competition challenges children of all ages – Reception to Year 12 – to invent solutions to problems they see in the world.

Nationwide 71,000 pupils took part in this year’s competition. UWE Engineering is the Leaders Award’s partner for South West England and hosted a wonderful panel of volunteer Engineers to assess local children’s inventions on 23rd May.

The judging panel consisted of engineers from partners GKN Aerospace, Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S), Thales, Boeing and supporters from Dyson and Airbus Aircraft and DXC Technology – see photo above. The panel had a great time selecting the winners!

Now UWE Bristol is looking forward to hosting the regional Awards Ceremony on Friday 5th July.

Local Engineers are invited to attend the Awards Ceremony and view the exhibition of shortlisted designs.

Get a ticket TO the awards ceremony

The exhibition will stay up for UWE Engineering’s Family Fun day on Saturday 6th July. It’s open to everyone!

Find out more & reserve your place

Inspire Family Fun Day free tickets now available! – Saturday July 6th

Author joshuawarren | Posted on

Tickets are now available for the School of Engineering’s annual Family Fun Day on Saturday the 6th of July. The event runs between 9.30 and 16:00, tickets are FREE and can be booked here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/engineering-family-fun-day-uwe-bristol-tickets-880113151127?aff=oddtdtcreator

There will be a variety of activities throughout the day for families to enjoy including UWE’s robots, LEGO Mindstorm robot building, a wind turbine building competition, and the ExplorerDome planetarium show We Make Our Future.

UWE is bringing all this together to celebrate the amazing inventions children in the South West designed for the Leaders Award competition – with shortlisted entries on display alongside the robots, music technology, crafty activities, and did we mention a FREE planetarium show?!

We expect the Family Fun Day to be very popular so don’t hesitate and snap up your free tickets now. Learn more about the We Make Our Future planetarium show here and look at photos from last year’s Family Fun Day on the Engineering Our Future Blog here.

Student engineers developing prototype of winning design from young engineer competition

Author joshuawarren | Posted on

The Leaders Award ‘If You Were an Engineer…’ national competition is partnering with UWE Bristol to again support this year’s competition, and bring to life an exciting prototype from one of last year’s winning young engineers.

The competition asks school children to imagine a creative and innovative solution to a problem, and design an inspiring prototype. The competition aims to bring together real-life engineers and schools, to provide STEM outreach, and also inspire the next generation of engineers.

A group of engineering students led by MAKERS Team member Hollie Lewis, are now planning to turn one of last year’s winning designs into reality. The team are working on creating a functioning prototype of an accessible shower design. The design aimed to try to make showering easier for those with disability, and also add some smart features to make finding the right temperature and pressure more convenient.

The group recently visited a retirement village to gain an insight into what is currently in use, and began making plans to innovate and improve. The group also spoke to a resident with mobility issues to learn from his perspective about the challenges that showering can pose.

Not only a valuable and challenging exercise for the team, it is hoped that the design will go on to form part of a student module project assessment. Students will move through the engineering design process to improve and refine the prototype with the support of School of Engineering technicians.

The UWE Bristol School of Engineering has hosted the judging panel and awards ceremony for the ‘If You Were and Engineer…’South West region in previous years, and will be again this year. The winning designs from this year will be on display in the School of Engineering after the event and during the upcoming Family Fun Day taking place on Saturday July 6th. You can find out more information about this by contacting engineeringourfuture@uwe.ac.uk

School of Engineering’s Family Fun Day attracts 800 visitors

Author katcorbett | Posted on

UWE Bristol’s School of Engineering opened its doors for another Family Fun Day earlier this month: families from Bristol and beyond got to enjoy a range of fun science and engineering-based activities at this free event.

They explored different aspects of engineering such as coding and robotics through LEGO Mindstorms and Pepper the humanoid robot, digital engineering through Minecraft, designing the best wind turbine blades, exploring crowd-driven music programming, and the inner workings of machines and household items in the tinker zone.

Another highlight was the free We Make Our Future planetarium show: the show is co-developed with the Explorer Dome team and celebrates the ingenuity of human engineering, whilst also addressing current issues around Climate Change. It introduces Digital Engineering as a relevant and attainable aspiration for all young people, with the aim of inspiring the next generation of engineers.

Visitors also got to enjoy an exhibition of children’s engineering designs and inventions for the Leaders Award Competition, a nationwide scheme that encourages children to solve problems using engineering thinking.

This annual event is a great opportunity to inspire children to think like engineers and introduce them to technology that they may not have been able to interact with otherwise in a fun and engaging way.

The day was very well attended with around 800 visitors. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive with children expressing how keen they were on coming back, and grown-ups feeling equally inspired by the activities, stating how it made them re-consider their conceptions about the role of engineering in shaping the world around us for the better.

We would like to thank all the staff, students, and helpers involved for making it an amazing day, not to forget the children and their families who attended, for contributing so much enthusiasm, curiosity, and great energy!

Come along and be inspired by children’s inventions – 6th April

Author louisacockbill | Posted on

On Thursday 6th April – pop along to GKN Aerospace Global Technology Centre for an hour (or as long as you want) to take a look at some of the intriguing inventions school children have been coming up with.

Children all over the country are currently furiously scribbling designs – all intended to solve some of the world’s most pressing issues. They are entering those ideas into the Leaders Award – and thousands of those entries will turn up at GKN (one of the Leaders Awards partners in the South West) for grading by our lovely local engineers.

Grading isn’t an onerous process – quite the opposite – you’ll simply be flicking through some drawings and putting the most interesting/credible ideas through to be shortlisted. Whilst being looked after by the lovely Leaders Award and GKN teams.

Every year grading participants really enjoy the experience and leave feeling inspired and intrigued by ideas such as, solar powered blankets or a variable light braking system on cars.

REGISTER TO JOIN IN!
One of the 2020 entries
Some pictures from last years grading day at UWE Bristol

When: Thursday 6th April – drop in sessions – come along whenever suits you

Location: GKN Aerospace Global Technology Centre, Taurus Road, Patchway, Bristol, Patchway, England – BS34 6FB

Contact:  sign up here – as the team would like to know how many people to expect

You can see the Leaders Award process below – all starting with the challenge “If you were an engineer, what would you do?” Step 6 – grading is where you would be helping out.

Something inspirational from last year’s event

For engineer Darren Kewley, from the MOD, he returns year after year to these grading days to hear the stories.”I think my favourite part is seeing their personal stories come through – the real world problems they face and seeing them apply engineering to fix those problems.”

One example that particularly struck him – “One child explained how their Gran was in hospital and it broke their heart to see the problems she was facing. They explained in the letter that they hadn’t known what to do, but after hearing about this competition, realised that engineering could help.”

The kids taking part in this competition have got it – Engineering solves problems and can help make the world a better place!

Please come along to help the children taking part in this project!

Family Fun day at UWE’s Engineering!

Author louisacockbill | Posted on

Tickets are going fast for UWE’s family fun day – taking place on Saturday 25th June in the brand new Engineering building on UWE’s Frenchay campus.

Get your free tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/leaders-award-family-fun-day-tickets-344241203707

Running: 10am – 4:30pm

We’ll have lots of exciting activities for the whole family – all the best local science-y activities in one place – robots, Minecraft & an amazing FREE planetarium show!

UWE is bringing all this together to celebrate the amazing inventions children in the South-West designed for the Leaders Award competition – with shortlisted entries on display alongside the robots, music technology, crafty activities, eco-house activity and did I mention a FREE planetarium show?!

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