YOUNG ENGINEERS AND SUCCESSION PLANNING
Young engineers impress with vision and teamwork
The Final of the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s (IET) Faraday Challenge – an annual competition to encourage more youngsters to study and consider science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) careers – took place at Liverpool’s Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in late June. A team from St Aidan’s High School, North Lanarkshire, won, with a device designed to help overcome young patients’ reluctance to eat and play while in hospital. The 2021-2022 Challenge saw IHEEM as the main ‘theme partner’ – the first time a professional engineering institute has had this honour. HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports.
First run by the IET in 2009, the Faraday Challenge is an annual competition of STEM days for children aged 12-13 held in schools across the UK, and is – as the IET puts it – about ‘getting them to really experience what it’s like to be a team of engineers’. With a long-standing shortage of young entrants to engineering, the Challenge aims to stimulate interest in a wide range of engineering roles among young people starting to think to about their career options, but who – in many cases – may be unaware of the extremely broad spectrum of opportunities that exist. The IET explains: “Young people participating in the Faraday Challenge work – during their Faraday Challenge Day – on a real-world engineering problem, exploring some of the challenges faced by engineers today. The engineering theme and field of engineering change every year.” Past competition ‘themes’ have ranged from aerospace to theme parks, and from space exploration to railways. Students work together in small teams to design and build a prototype and present their findings for judging. The IET adds: “The days are set up and
run by a STEM professional, and are free to schools. Support is provided by the Challenge Leader, but the emphasis is on students working as a self-directed and motivated team, navigating beyond their comfort zones, and being challenged to explore their own solutions.”
Big name sponsors Each year’s competition has a main theme partner – often a big name in engineering; past theme partners have included Network Rail, Airbus, the James Webb Space Telescope, and Thorpe Park. One of the key areas of focus both for IHEEM’s current President, Paul Fenton, during his two-year tenure, and for CEO, Pete Sellars, has been succession planning, and especially encouraging more young people into healthcare engineering roles. IHEEM has already undertaken, and continues to
34 Health Estate Journal August 2022
The winning team from St Aidan’s High School, with their teachers, Fionn O’Mara (Science) and Paula Brown (Design & Technology).
undertake, a range of STEM activities, with members regularly visiting schools to talk about their roles, and highlight the exciting careers available in healthcare engineering to youngsters – many of whom will never have considered the key part that such professionals play in the day-to-day running of healthcare facilities.
Early discussions Following a discussion in late 2020 between IET Fellow and IHEEM President, Paul Fenton, and the IET’s Head of Education and Safeguarding, David Lakin, IHEEM was invited to be the theme partner for the 2021-2022 Faraday Challenge, with the season’s theme to be based around healthcare engineering. The Carbon & Energy Fund was also asked to be a partner. Beginning last September, Year 8 (in England and Wales), S1 and S2 in Scotland, and Year 9 pupils in Northern Ireland, from some 285 schools across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, entered the 2021-2022 Faraday Challenge, with IHEEM setting them a brief to design a prototype for use in a children’s hospital to make the young patients’ stay
more comfortable and relaxing both for them, and for their families, carers, and friends. Each team also had to complete a ‘planning and events log’ to demonstrate how they had designed their idea, ‘solved problems’, and worked as a team. An IET Faraday Challenge Day 2021-22 IHEEM Student Booklet given to competing schools explained that the judges would be looking for each team to demonstrate that they had: n been creative; n planned carefully; n worked within the available resources / budget;
n been realistic about what could be achieved in the time available;
n been ‘resilient’ and persevered in overcoming any problems;
n recorded their thinking, and n kept to strict deadlines.
Emphasis on a sustainable product Given the current NHS drive towards Net Zero carbon, IHEEM also stipulated that the participants should consider sustainability – for instance thinking about which materials they could use to minimise environmental impact, and about reducing
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