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Five sixth form students from Dane Court Grammar School completed their submission for the Engineering Education Scheme last Friday. The scheme culminated in a celebration and assessment event held at the University of Kent, Canterbury.

The aim of the scheme is to provide students with an insight into the potential career opportunities available in the engineering industry. Teams work on a real time engineering project set by a local company then have six months to resolve the problem, create a solution, prepare a report and present their ideas to a panel of assessors. Dane Court has been generously supported by Instro Precision Ltd, Broadstairs (Instro) for a number of years by providing a wide variety of challenging tasks and this year was no exception.

The task this year was to create an environment to simulate a typical dust storm that equipment developed by Instro would be subject to in hostile working conditions. If the equipment passes these in house test conditions then it would be sent for official certification with a high degree of certainty that it will pass.
The team developed a variety of solutions and, after some prototyping and discussion with the engineers at Instro, produced a successful outcome that they were able to successfully test to ensure it met industry standards.

Paul Dean, Head of Design Technology said 'This is an outstanding scheme that gives our students a unique opportunity to explore the opportunities presented by potential careers in engineering. This year's team produced an excellent solution to the problem and their presentation was well received by the panel of assessors. As a result the team are likely to receive a Gold CREST award for their efforts. CREST is an industry award scheme that recognises creativity in engineering, science and technology.'

Student Emily Watkins described her experience 'I learned a lot about teamwork as there were occasions where we did not agree on things so would have to talk problems through to arrive at the best possible solution. I also learnt a lot about engineering and what it would be like to have a job in the industry as you have to complete tasks within a deadline'

Tom Jury, Engineering Manager at Instro and chair of the Kent Area of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers added 'Britain is currently lacking in good professional engineers, especially mechanical engineers. Schemes such as EES do not only give huge benefits to the students in introducing them to engineering but also benefit the companies. It was a pleasure to work with the team from Dane Court the students displayed some very good engineering knowledge and implemented a good solution that Instro hopes to adopt as part of their feasibility testing'