An update from Team ESTEEM:
Class Of Your Own (‘COYO’) is a social business dedicated to inspiring young people and their teachers to discover built environment careers through bespoke STEM education.
Our flagship ‘Design Engineer Construct’ learning programme has enabled hundreds of students to enter university and the world of work with excellent knowledge and skills and a genuine appetite for the sector.
Every year, Class Of Your Own launches an inter-school challenge to inspire young architecture, engineering and construction professionals to create an exciting design project.
This year, to celebrate our long established relationship with Heriot Watt University and the amazing achievement of Team Esteem in the Solar Decathlon Middle East, we decided to create a challenge that focused on the education of the people who might live in a solar house in Dubai.
Could young people design a learning centre to teach a whole community how to think and live green …? And how would the climate and location impact the design?
The challenge was launched at the beginning of March, but when national procurement framework Scape Group put out a call for ideas to help the hundreds of 14/15 year olds who would miss out on work experience due to Covid-19, they were pointed in COYO’s direction.
Work on our pilot virtual work experience programme had just concluded, so it was great to say: “we can help!” I immediately contacted my good friends, Associate Professor in Architecture Alex MacLaren and HWU Team Esteem members, to ask for their help.
Within a few weeks, academics and undergraduates had put together a series of videos to support an extraordinary virtual work experience programme hosted on the pioneering ‘Learn Live’ platform from 18th – 22nd May.
This ‘safe space’ enabled 2000 young people across the UK to experience an extraordinary week by accessing these fantastic, informative broadcasts and ‘chatting’ with university and industry ambassadors in an entirely safe environment.
I’m incredibly proud of all that we’ve all achieved together – the feedback from students, teachers and parents has been fantastic. It’s been an amazing collaboration and Heriot Watt University’s input, and impact, has been unbelievable. I’m honoured to be part of such a great institution.
Jairis Alvarez Trujillo
Project Leader Alison (follow website for more information):
Luke Convey:
My COYO experience was extremely rewarding, the students brought up some very interesting points and often made me think hard to answer their questions. Seeing the student’s creativity in using 3D modelling outside of software Team Esteem would typically uselike Sims and Minecraft impressed me a lotand showed their commitment to the project.
I was also impressed by the standard of a lot of the questions we were asked, which showed their enthusiasm and willingness to learn about the sustainable methods which Team Esteem are looking to employ in our project.
Sonia Piorek:
Working remotely is a challenge in a way. I moved back to my parents for the epidemics so to the place where I spent time when I am free. Thus, it is difficult to motivate myself to wake up early everyday and focus on tasks. Nevertheless, it saves me a lot of time which I usually spend on commuting.
Pietro Donatelli:
Shifting quickly to the virtual experience of working remotely was a challenge for ESTEEM Members. As a team, one of our greatest commitments were surely our recurrent meetings held on campus where we had the chance to discuss, engage and solve problems collectively.
Luckily, we tried to keep our weekly schedule as intact as possible and our sponsors flexibly moved to virtual meetings as well, making the whole process easier. To me, working remotely has become the new normal, but I’m not going to lie, it’s easier to forget your ‘virtual’ schedule than a live meeting.
For this reason, I will always be grateful to Outlook Calendar for its 15 minutes reminder.
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