Swansea University

 

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Join the Engineering Adventure with Engineering@School

The BLOODHOUND Education Team, led by Dave Rowley of the Royal Academy of Engineering, has joined up with key Education Partners who are already active in schools across the UK, to ensure a nationwide roll-out of a comprehensive Education Plan which will target all school ages.

  • The aim of Swansea University’s Education activities is to complement the activities of the Bloodhound Education Team. In the first year after the launch we will be bringing a 45 minute BLOODHOUND Engineering roadshow into secondary schools, where real-life engineers will talk about the people and challenges involved in the Bloodhound project, so raising general awareness and enthusiasm for the exciting and challenging nature of engineering and highlighting the various careers that studying STEM subjects can lead to.
  • The education and personal routes into the BLOODHOUND Engineering Challenge of key Design Team members will be used as role models. Areas of the Bloodhound Engineering that are particularly related to Swansea University i.e. computational fluid dynamics will be used to demonstrate some of the practical applications of the STEM subject “theory” that is taught in schools.
  • We will be targeting all secondary schools within reasonable travelling distance of Swansea University, as far as is humanly possible! An online system will soon be accessible through our website for schools to register their interest. Accompanying material will also be available to download, and will be updated as the BLOODHOUND Project progresses.
  • Initially we aim to target specifically GCSE and A-Level pupils currently studying across a broad range of disciplines. This is to be a presentation with broad appeal due to the popularity of the BLOODHOUND Project, and is definitely not just intended for those who are already on the path studying STEM subjects.
  • On 1st November 2008 the Swansea BLOODHOUND Engineering Adventure was unvieled at the Wales Swansea Waterfront Museum, with local Education Partners and heads of schools invited to attend. You can view the photo gallery from the day here. We hope to start our school visits early in 2009.
  • This educational programme has been developed as part of an EPSRC-funded engineering research grant. Dr Jason Jones and Dr Clare Wood are jointly leading the development of the materials, website and the schools programme.
  • The BLOODHOUND Education Team has developed an extensive programme of UK-wide activities and is working closely with a number of Education Partners including The BA, Year in Industry, GreenPower, Primary Engineer, The Engineering Diploma, Engineering Explained, Smallpiece Trust, Young Engineers, STEPS at Work, STEMNET and others. We will work to complement these activities, for example through the SETPOINT Engineering Ambassador scheme. Our Design Team engineers have also contributed to the Educational programme, from providing key feedback on the technical content of the teaching materials, to helping name the BLOODHOUND Education mascot!
  • We will be constantly listening to feedback from schools about the visits we make and the website. Of course, we hope that longer-term success will translate into more young people taking up STEM subjects either at school or university.