As we approach the end of Tomorrow’s Engineers Week, Lottie shares her tour of the new UWE Bristol School of Engineering Building.
With a new academic year underway, we’re all very excited about the opening of the new engineering building on Frenchay campus! The first group of staff from the Faculty of Environment and Technology were welcomed into the new building on Monday 12th October. Everyone was very excited to unpack their crates and set up their new workstations – and Lottie certainly proved very helpful with all the heavy lifting!
The new building houses specialist laboratories, workshops and digital engineering facilities, able to support 1700 students and 100 academic and technical staff, many of whom have been enjoying the new facilities over the past couple of weeks during the start of teaching block 1. The building contributes to the University’s vision of promoting multi-disciplinary, collaborative learning and has been designed hand-in-hand with the vibrant new practice-based curriculum, bringing engineering to life through real world problems and live industrial briefs, and building on entrepreneurial skills to ensure all graduates are business-aware as well as technically qualified.
Lottie was particularly keen to visit the new Prototype and Play centre, a dedicated area for delivering engineering outreach activities and public engagement events. Staff from the DETI Inspire team have been busy filling the room with lots of exciting gadgets and gizmos, and are really looking forward to welcoming school and community groups into the space, once lockdown measures are eased.
This new public engagement centre is key to the work being carried out by the EDM department as lead for Skills and Workforce Development for the Digital Engineering Technology and Innovation (DETI) initiative. It will allow the DETI Inspire team to develop and deliver curriculum linked engagement activities, host public open events for families and schools, run teacher CPD events to support and upskill, and provide engagement training for their Diversity Demonstrator network.
The team have big plans for the year ahead so watch this space for news of local celebration events and regional competitions from The Primary Engineer Leaders Awards, First Lego League, Great Science Share for Schools and many more!
That’s all from Lottie for now, but she’ll be back with more stories as her engineering tour continues throughout the year. Next stop, the National Composites Centre.
WES Lottie Tour is an annual campaign that takes ‘Lottie’ to many different locations accompanying lots of different engineering friends who show Lottie the work they do in engineering and related careers. Lottie’s experiences are shared across social media using #WESLottieTour and aims to inspire and encourage more young girls to consider a career in engineering and STEM subjects.