Engineering Hero

EEE in the real world Student experience 16 December 2015

When I spoke to Jon a few weeks back, he told me that if I provide an exciting product, teachers will come up with a lot of very creative ideas. This week that was proved as I pitched the concept to a group of around 30-40 enthusiastic school teachers.

#TTRP2

This week, SEERIH launched the second occurrence of Tinker, Taylor, Robot, Pi. This project partners teachers and University engineers to respond to the question:

How do we embrace engineering education and an ethos of tinkering using computer science, design and technology and the science curriculum?

The project nails the idea of developing, trailing and refining learning approaches/experiences that can work to ‘plug’ the gaps in school classroom practice so that computer science is actively and genuinely used to enhance science and technology, and indeed make real ‘what it means to be an engineer’.

As part of the two-day immersion event, I gave a presentation as an ‘Engineering Hero’. Other (perhaps more obvious) heroes included Dr Bill Crowther, Sophie Miell, and Prof Danielle George who all presented real life examples of engineers across disciplines.

I spoke about the path taken that lead me to want to become an engineer, and how that links back to the ‘Engineering Habits of Mind’, a concept which provides a backbone to the TTRP project. I was then able to give a ‘Dragons Den’ styled pitch, perhaps minus the huge piles of cash.

UNANIMOUSLY POSITIVE

I asked the teachers (in true classroom fashion, by show of hands) to rate their experiences with classroom data loggers, out of 5. No one voted higher than 2, and some illustrated their past experiences of excess hassle and problems.

I then proposed my solution. An overview of the product, and a couple of sample use cases. Once again, by show of hands, a reaction was captured: every single teacher was ‘interested in using such product in the classroom’.

It didn’t take long before ideas were coming forward, including how the device could be used in one schools annual rocket challenge, or another school’s remote control car race in the upcoming science festival. Teachers from subjects as far afield as PE and DT also expressed great interest in how the product could be applied to their subjects.

As a result of the event, I received some great feedback with ideas for product development and loads of fantastic use cases. Furthermore, I’ve now got a long list of schools willing to trial the device, a stage I’m hoping to reach in the next few months!

Thanks again to Lynne and Jon for the collaboration, and I very much look forward to seeing outcomes of the Tinker Taylor Robot Pi project. More information can be found on the SEERIH website: http://www.fascinate.manchester.ac.uk/

3rd yearAlecundergraduate