Launching ‘The Secondary Engineer® Fluid Power Challenge’ into Cambridgeshire and East Anglia schools got off to a flying start when teachers and organisers from the Primary Engineer team joined forces with Webtec at the companies St Ives manufacturing facility.

The project to attract secondary school pupils into engineering will run during 2018/19 and aims to introduce over 200 14-year olds to the fun and challenge of building a pick and place robot arm using low cost materials and fluid power principles.

Following a tour of Webtec’s sales, manufacturing, R & D and instrument and hydraulics assembly area the eight local teachers were invited to get ‘hands-on’ and complete the ‘Fluid Power Challenge’ for themselves.

The Fluid Power Challenge is run by the not-for-profit Primary Engineer Programmes® and is supported by many companies including WEBTEC and Cambridgeshire Hydraulics, as well as numerous trade associations including British Fluid Power Association (BFPA), British Compressed Air Society (BCAS), and Construction Equipment Association (CEA).

“This was a great day and helped the teachers to put engineering into context, with a focus on hydraulics and see the inner workings of an engineering business first hand.” commented Lauren Nightingale from the Primary Engineer Programme®, who took part on the day. “We are really looking forward to the pupils getting involved with the challenge over the coming months and would like to thank all of our partners for their support” she added.

The Secondary Engineer® Fluid Power Challenge is a pneumatics and hydraulics systems project which gives schools the opportunity to engage in basic engineering principles and concepts, using readily available materials to design and build working systems. Not only does this support the study of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) in a practical manner but allows pupils and teachers the opportunity to work with engineers in the classroom and compete against teams from other schools.

Posted by Webtec

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