The £500 is not for us to use personally but for spreading the word that engineering is awesome! That is what is meant by outreach activities, getting non-scientists interested and involved in science. £500 would allow me to buy and send 7 water rocket packs to teach children in poor countries about forces, aerodynamics, etc… Or it could enable me the money to buy the parts needed to build a dust trap to demonstrate how some of our optical clocks work.
The £500 is for us to spend on our choice of outreach programme. It’s not for us personally. We all get involved in outreach work because it’s important to let you know that being an engineer is something that’s achievable by normal people.
However, we do get something back – it’s really informative and inspirational to us to get your feedback and to inspire young people.
If the money was for me; I’d buy a new graphics card for my PC.
But the money isn’t,…
…so it’ll be spent of rocketry stuff.
It will benefit me indirectly, in that myself and my colleagues will be able to do more outreach work where we travel round schools and get the pupils to make rockets. I benefit from the fun and fulfilment of doing that, also from sharing my knowledge in a way that helps others learn.
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