STEM: That’s Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths – but you knew that, of course!
A team of employees from Edinburgh electronics company Leonardo (better known to us old-timers as Ferranti’s!) are planting a ‘STEM’ seed that could lead to improved career prospects for Craigroyston Community High School pupils.
After observing the positive outcome of two pre-apprenticeship students from the school who attended their programme last year – and who will become full time apprentices at Leonardo in June – Radar Production Team Lead Chris Owens (who started with the company as a young apprentice just seven years ago) and Derek McLelland, who is Supply Chain Manufacturing Manager, are convinced that giving the students early experience of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) projects in industry could build their enthusiasm for future careers in this field.
With this in mind, the Leonardo team has devised a task that will give S1 students experience of an industrial project, while raising their awareness of the excitement of engineering: the students will be asked to build a Meccano vehicle that is capable of carrying a load across a bridge.
Like any real industrial project, they will be judged not only on the quality of their build and the performance of the vehicle, but also on whether they deliver the project to budget and timescale.
This follows the pupils’ initial introduction to the business last year, where they were invited to visit the site at Crewe Toll to give them a feel for what it is like to work in industry.
The young people were led through a series of games which while being fun and easy to follow, embedded tangible examples of Lean Manufacturing Techniques in action. These included a numbers game which touched on workplace organisation and quality control, a ping pong game which conveyed the value of process control and continuous improvement and a spaghetti structure which invited teams to think laterally and collaborate closely with each other.
All of these fun activities contained the core skills needed to thrive in industry and the follow-on activity of the Meccano vehicle challenge will seek to deepen their awareness of STEM careers. The pupils’ vehicle build is currently concluding its final stages of construction and final judging will take place next month.
Chris said: “The Pilton Community surrounds our business, so we’re keen to encourage home-grown talent by giving them the awareness that they can enjoy STEM subjects at school which could lead to a real job here.”
Derek added: “This is the start of what we hope will be a long term collaboration between Craigroyston High School and our Company, where we will use our experience in manufacturing, engineering and industry to develop talented local children, giving them an additional gateway into industry. We get the satisfaction of planting the STEM seed and if we are lucky in the years to come, we will hopefully continue to watch it grow within our Company.”
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