In October 2003 David Lloyd and Jonathan Wentworth, members of the IET Essex younger members committee helped as facilitators at the second eTECH event this year. eTECH is an event organised by SETPOINT Essex to provide an introduction to engineering for 9-10 year olds. The events are offered to schools across Essex and help cover the syllabus of the technical/design aspects of the national curriculum. The events are staffed by volunteers working within engineering companies in Essex and many of whom have signed up to become Science & Engineering Ambassadors.

The event in October, based at the Tilbury cruise terminal, attracted 782 pupils over the 2 days. After a demonstration outside of how a real crane works, the children set to work in their groups acting as engineers for the day. There were 3 x 1+1/4 hour sessions throughout the day. For the aspiring civil engineers, there was the challenge of devising a mechanism for transporting equipment across a river. Having had their design approved it was time to build their design from K'nex The building of a hot air balloon appealed to the more creative engineers, as they battled with coloured tissue paper, glue and hair dryers to see which one could get the highest. The final activity was a proven favourite, allowing groups to construct and test a balloon-powered vehicle.

Everyone who attended had a splendid day, and went home with a bag containing goodies from the various sponsors of the event, and promotional material on working in engineering There were definitely some potential engineers at the event.

For more information on the work of SETPOINT or the IET in Essex, or how to become a Science & Engineering Ambassador please visit http://local.iee.org/essex and http://www.setpointessex.co.uk

The Young Engineers of Britain Essex regional final took place on Thursday 3rd July, with winners going to the national final held in London in September. The event was held at the Anglia Polytechnic University in Chelmsford, with students from schools all over Essex attending. With so many projects being exhibited, a large number of judges were required, including one of our IET Younger Members, David Lloyd. Projects on display ranged from educational devices, such as an interactive display board about wildlife, to security, transport and safety items. All were of an extremely high quality, which made the judging decisions all the more difficult and it will be very interesting to see which projects come out top in September.

On Thursday 27 June 2003 two members from the Essex YM committee attended an Insight Into Industry day at Moulsham High School in Chelmsford. The day was an opportunity for year 9 students to gain a greater insight into the world of work and the possibilities open to them. The event has been successfully run by the school for many years. It involved many companies with many different trades and careers being covered.

Following the introduction, the students broke apart into small groups to attend their predetermined sessions, two in the morning and one in the afternoon. Our session was structured such that two engineering related activities could be conducted in the allotted time of 1¼ hours. Both activities aimed to promote teamwork, group communication, the need to understand the problem, produce and implement a design and then undertake testing – all generic engineering skills.

The first activity was to produce a communication and coding system that would allow a message to be sent from one team to another without the facilitator intercepting it. A variety of materials were provided and several ingenious solutions were produced – some with a lot more success than others. Following testing and the awarding of points the next exercise commenced, which was to construct a bridge out of spaghetti and plastercine to support a 100g weight. The added complication with this exercise was that a cost element was introduced with a price attached to each small amount of plastercine and each piece of spaghetti. The team with the most cost-effective bridge was the winner.

The sessions aimed to promote the idea of engineering being fun and that once a problem is understood there are many ways to solve it, with there being really no correct answer. Although no one signed up there and then, the students had an enjoyable experience and will hopefully remember engineering when choosing a future career. As for us, it was an exhausting day and we were both glad to go back to work for a rest. One lesson we learnt was that plastercine and parquet flooring don’t mix!

Steve Wade
Jonathan Wentworth

On Tuesday 3 June the Essex Younger members committee organised a visit to the control room for the Jubilee line extension branch of the London Underground. The centre has only been open for just over 3 years and controls up to 24 trains per hour. The centre is staffed 24 hours a day and works in partnership with a 2nd control centre in managing the whole jubilee line.

The talk covered the different functions covered by personnel within the control room which included signalling and radio communications. The talk covered many aspects including power distribution and supply, signalling techniques, time-tabling, platform and in-train messaging and announcements, staffing of safety critical systems and disaster management.

Seen here are members of the group with Andy Moss, duty line control manager.

To provide feedback on this event or to suggest venues or speaker for future events please email events@essex.iee.org

On Monday 5 October 2002 3 committee members from the Essex Branch joined the team of 50 volunteers to help staff E-TECH 2002. This was an event organised by SETPOINT, an organisation that aims to promote careers in engineering to young people. More...