As a company of scientists, engineers and technical consultants, Frazer-Nash has a long-established and deeply-held commitment to promoting science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) careers and helping to inspire the next generation of STEM professionals.
Our company is proud to support the Engineering Development Trust’s Industrial Cadets programme which helps secondary school students access STEM learning and experience the world of work, and as part of that programme, over the past 20 weeks Senior Engineer Alex Davies from our mechanical design team and Junior Consultant Anwen Davies from our Requirements, Acceptance and Systems Engineering team have been mentoring six Year 12 students from the Mossbourne Academy in Hackney, north London.
The students, who are all taking STEM subjects, have been turning their creativity and innovative thinking to tackle 20 key requirements from a real-world engineering challenge - currently being undertaken for a client by Frazer-Nash engineers - to design a product to enable Duchenne muscular dystrophy patients to retain independence with tasks such as washing their own hands. In preparation for their final deliverable: a formal presentation and 50 page report - Alex and Anwen were delighted to welcome the students and their teacher to our Leatherhead HQ to spend the day discussing their progress on the project.
Alex explained how the existing client project was reframed for the students: “We wanted to take a project which we felt instinctively would be an inviting one for the students because they could see the real-life applications of engineering to improve the lives of teenage patients and have the feel-good factor of doing something meaningful for a charity, Duchenne UK.”
“We introduced the project and the initial set of requirements, and then the students worked on the project for three hours every week for the past five months. As mentors, we have spoken to them each week and have been impressed about how incredibly engaged they have been: they chose to do the project and have really wanted to do the work.”
For Alex, the project was his first experience as a STEM volunteer, but Anwen has previously undertaken a lot of volunteering in schools, observing: “I’ve done quite a lot of STEM activities previously, principally going into primary and secondary schools to give presentations on engineering. It’s important to me to take the opportunity to inspire pupils and students, and to help with representation.”
“Having representation out there, especially female representation in some areas is necessary. When I was younger, an engineer came into visit our school and it made a big impact on me, so I always said that when I become an engineer, I would try and go into schools as a STEM volunteer, and so I did, and it’s been great!”
Having received the set of 20 requirements, the students had to decide on a preferred approach and chose to focus on design and prototyping. Alex gave an insight into the students’ thought process: “Initially, the students’ viewpoint was just to get stuck in, have a few smart ideas and get going. They felt that they were going to come up with a really great solution straight off the bat and then fine tune that one solution through trial and error. What was great to see, however, was how quickly they adopted a real-world engineering mindset instead: they learned that you have to break everything down into smaller pieces and tackle the unknowns: essentially identify a really wide variety of options and narrow them down through research and whatever prototyping they could do.”
Anwen agreed, adding: “I remember one of the conversations we had with the students about the impact of time constraints and cost constraints. This was a really interesting discussion to have with an early careers group. As professional engineers we obviously have to think about these things every single day of our working lives, but I remember thinking that when I was younger, I don’t think that I ever thought about the fact that you will be constrained by time and cost and that you don’t have infinite resources to enable making a fantastic solution straight off the bat. I thought that was a really insightful and thought-provoking conversation to have.”
Both Alex and Anwen were very positive about the inspiration and learning that they themselves gained from the experience of mentoring the students. Anwen observed: “The beauty of the project is that it genuinely enabled two-way learning: Alex and I were able to guide and mentor the students but equally, we learned a lot from that. In particular, they had some very, very good ways of explaining things. Sometimes in the engineering world, we can be quite technical in our communications, but the team took the research that they had put into their final report and got to the point where they were able to explain things very simply and clearly without using technical jargon.”
“I also noticed that they had very good team work when they were doing presentations: without any kind of rehearsal or prior planning, they were able to switch seamlessly and smoothly between presenters in a really professional and slick way. Each presenter was able to get across their point in a very useful way and segway very naturally into the next section. I was very impressed in a good way! We could learn a lot from the students about how to do presentations well – they were really good!”
She concluded: “The biggest thing I took away from this is that because the students were so engaged and so interested in what they were doing, and in our work and guidance to them, it brought into sharp focus how much I really love my job. It’s easy to take for granted that I have a really cool job, but talking to the students reminds me that actually projects I’ve worked on are really cool! Hearing and seeing the students’ excitement about the projects reminded me of my own excitement about working on them, which was lovely.”
“The students are all at very pivotal stage in their life where they are thinking about going to university and what they might like to do for their career. So, for me, being part of the project felt very fulfilling both on a personal level and professionally because it was genuinely mutually beneficial. Mentoring the students enabled me to improve some of my skills, such as how I approach communication, but even more importantly, I feel like I’ve made an impact on a group of people who are deciding to do what they want to do with their lives and try and work out whether engineering is for them or not. I found it rewarding to help them by showing them my world, encourage them where it’s needed and explain things that they want to know about. It was really fulfilling being able to give back.”
