Category: Drylaw Telford

Stronger North: crackdown on crime in North Edinburgh

Police have been conducting Stronger North activity in the North Edinburgh area over the past week. Officers have made 42 arrests and executed seven misuse of drugs warrants since last Monday. Over the last week £9000 worth of drugs have been recovered in the area, along with seven stolen motorcycles and one stolen car. Seventeen vehicles have also been seized for having invalid insurance. Continue reading Stronger North: crackdown on crime in North Edinburgh

Stop the evictions!

CRISIS: campaigners demand an end to the eviction of families

Campaigners resisting the evictions of families due to the Benefits Cap are protesting at the full meeting of City of Edinburgh Council thios morning.  Deputations from North Edinburgh’s All About Me and Power to the People groups will demand the council take action on the crisis.  Last month the campaigners occupied both Council offices and Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson’s constituency office to demand housing for homeless families. Continue reading Stop the evictions!

Could you represent your community?

Become a member of Muirhouse Salvesen Community Council, but hurry – nominations close on Friday!

Community councils have been part of our democratic structures for over forty years, speaking out as a local voices on issues of concern – and you can play your part if you live in Muirhouse or Salvesen by becoming a community councillor.  Continue reading Could you represent your community?

Spartans celebrate Women’s Sport Week with Girls Football Festival

Up to 300 local schoolgirls are set to take part in Spartans Community Football Academy’s Girls Football Festival tomorrow at Spartans’ Ainslie Park home.

Continue reading Spartans celebrate Women’s Sport Week with Girls Football Festival

Robot Games at Leonardo … and a Wookie came too!

More than a hundred school children and air cadets – and a Wookie ! – gathered at Leonardo aerospace engineering company at Crewe Toll to compete in the Scottish Robotic Games on Satuday. The competitors were joined by special guest Professor Sethu Vijayakumar, a Professor of Robotics at the University of Edinburgh and a Judge on BBC2’s Robot Wars, who judged the robot entries and presented prizes.

The games were the brainchild of former employee Peter Bennett, Director of the Rampaging Chariots Guild, and a former winner of the ‘Robot Wars’ competition. Peter designed the event to provide a simple, colourful introduction to the excitement of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects. The children acquire valuable skills by creating customised hand-built robots, whose capabilities are then tested in a number of challenges which Most Usedinclude robot football, robotic ‘tug of war’ and robot sumo wrestling.

Leonardo organised the event to increase young people’s enjoyment and interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) subjects, so that they might consider careers in this field in the future. They were particularly delighted to welcome many girls to the event – currently only 9% of engineers in the UK are women.

Research produced by Engineering UK this year confirms that only 35% of STEM teachers feel confident about giving engineering careers advice, so the industry has an important role to play in drawing young people to this field by providing enjoyable early experiences of STEM. Events like the Robotic Games encourage young people to imagine a creative, bright future for themselves in engineering and science.

Sethu Vijayakumar, Professor of Robotics at Edinburgh University, was particularly impressed with the childrens’ creativity. He said: “I think the main thing is their willingness to understand and formalise a problem, and then solve it by taking an existing piece of kit, and putting their own ideas into it.

“I always tell people that starting is the hardest thing, so I think this initiative is great because you have a kit which lowers the barrier to entry, and once you have that then people can feel more confident that they can do stuff on their own, and build on their capabilities. It is literally giving them their first ladder up to their first step, and I think this is great for that.”