Leicestershire Primary and Secondary schools took part in the inaugural STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) challenge at Plantworx on the last day of the show (Thursday 8th June 2017 Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground, Leicester).
It was full steam ahead for the Primary and Secondary Engineer event at Plantworx Construction Machinery show – the event formed part of the Student Afternoon, which Plantworx successfully piloted at the 2015 event.
Wow is all we can say!! The schools that took part in this STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) challenge battled the elements and difficult ground conditions to get to Plantworx and brought their carefully constructed vehicles and fluid power projects to the ‘Celebration Event’ – and what a fantastic day! We have had very positive feedback from the schools involved and many said that if this event (Primary Engineer) was run each year – it would automatically be added to the school curriculum.
Judges included engineers from Caterpillar, JCB and Perkins, who volunteered for the role, and from other sponsor companies including AMI, Bomag, BSP Foundations, GKD, Gomaco, Datatag, Marubeni Komatsu, Point of Rental and TriMark. JCB Apprentices were also on hand to chat to the students and even brought along their JCB Loadall (parked up in the Hub) which was designed and built by 68 JCB Apprentices. Charles Stevenson, JCB general manager, also offered each of the participating schools a trip to JCB headquarters in Rocester! Bomag was kind enough to provide us with a ’50-years of Bomag’ cake – which once cut by CEA Skills Council ambassador, Nigel Baseley, went down a storm!
This brand-new initiative by the CEA forms part of the CEA Skills Council programme – inspiring our future engineers today!
A full report coming soon! But in the mean time – we would like to share some images of the day with you!
