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Asked by mullerj to Amit, Emily, Joanne, Martin, Paige on 14 Mar 2012. This question was also asked by caitlin.
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Amit Pujari answered on 13 Mar 2012:
I really love speaking, working with young kids like you. Discussing with them and explaining them about science and engineering. And my experience is, kids love this experience to! They enjoy asking questions, they like to know everything! And I if win the prize money, I would like to do these things more and more.
I would really like to organize hands on workshops at various schools. Workshops in which students can learn more about engineering by playing and experimenting and having fun!Details of what exactly I intend to do if I win are here:
I would like to set up hands on workshops which school kids will enjoy and have fun with! Workshops will be about engineering but especially about ‘biomedical engineering’. I believe not many school kids know ‘what biomedical engineering is and how fascinating it is?’School kids will build mock devices, machines or body parts. They will become biomedical engineers and will solve problems faced in the real world by biomedical engineers. This way kids will learn ‘what biomedical is and how it works?’ Also, kids often come up with bright ideas and all sorts of interesting questions, engineers like us can learn a great deal from kids too!
In the end, students will be the judges of whether they liked the workshop. Students will decide what they would like the future workshops about? Best student engineer and engineering teams will win the prices (yes that’s you, school kids)! Student engineers from the winning team can get a chance to come and spend few hours in our Labs, speak to us, see what we actually do (I still need to get permission from our ‘Head of School/Institute’ on this, but this is the rough plan).
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Martin Wallace answered on 13 Mar 2012:
I am thinking a lot more about my idea of getting a big set of lego technic or mindstorms, or both, and taking them to schools to give students the opportunity to play with them and discover how to use engineering to create moving machines and structures. Hopefully if I can inspire them by playing to appreciate how things work, like I did when I was growing up, then learning can be more enjoyable and rewarding. I think I will set some challenges to come up with a machine to perform a specific task or to create a robot or car to win a race. The possibilities are endless. Maybe we could even make an electronic hospital bed out of lego.
Also it gives me the chance to have a bit of a play too. -
Joanne Davies answered on 13 Mar 2012:
Mullerj – You have more questions than any engineers I know.
I hope you consider engineering as a profession!If I won the money I would invest it all in a real live engineering project that involves all the students participating here.
What will I do with the prize money:
I’m going to commission an engineering communication project for schools.
Students who want to take part will:
• Work as part of a Design Team team on a live project;
• Write a Brief;
• Research;
• Brainstorm;
• Write specifications;
• Be creative;
• Learn about Usability;
• Learn about copyright and copyright law;
• Further their knowledge on engineering and engineering career paths;
• Improve upon effective writing and communication skills; and
• Publish their own thoughts and ideas to communicate engineering to other young students, in a way that’s easy to understandThe exact project will be decided by the Design Team but we are going to need:
• Project Managers
• Graphic Designers
• Writers
• Editors
• Photographers
• Illustrators
• Artists
• Proofreaders
• Researchers & investigators
• Ideas and solutionsWe may need…
• Web Developers
• Translators
• FB App Writers
• Moderators
• Software Developers…that’s for the Design Team to decide and that’s YOU!
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Emily Bullen answered on 14 Mar 2012:
I would like to allow students to see real places of work, and talk to real engineers. I think there’s nothing like seeing things yourself to make up your mind whether you’re interested or not. And the more things you see the more likely you are to be able to decide what you want to do as a career!
That might mean funding some local schools bus trip to come and see the company I work for, or it might mean donating it to a charity that does something like this.
What do you think? Do you think that would help? -
Paige Brown answered on 17 Mar 2012:
If I am fortunate to win the monetary reward, I plan to set up an online WEBSITE that will bring high school students closer to their local engineers and scientists.
This website will be a permanent place for students to ask engineers and scientists questions about science and research. But even more than that, the website will be a place where scientists should write about their research and their current scientific projects, so that students can give their input and advice! You see, many scientists get soo bogged down in their work that they fail to see some of the most obvious and innovative applications of their work. Scientists need the ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking of high school students and young engineering and science students just as much as these students need scientists to foster their scientific skill sets.
In addition, with the money from ‘I’m an Engineer, get me Out of Here!’ I hope to set up this site and arrange for sponsors to pay for high-school students to visit their local engineers and scientists at their local universities and biotech companies, and even for scientists to visit the students’ schools! I think such outreach is incredibly important. Science education is not a one way street! Scientists need the ideas and advice of young students to give their projects more out-of-the-lab and real-world applications.
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