May started with the launch of the Young Inventors project by the Made In Yorkshire group and sponsored by recruitment specialist Michael Page.
As I am a big believer that we need to do what we can to encourage those at a young age to follow a path into engineering and manufacturing careers, I was honoured to attend the Scarborough UTC to be on the judging panel. I had read the brief for the day several times but having not attended a UTC before I wasn’t sure what to expect.
I was not disappointed by Scarborough UTC! Firstly, the immaculate learning atmosphere made me entirely jealous that I am not a decade (and a bit) younger and could have attended such a place. The afternoon started with a tour around the facilities, and if I weren’t envious enough after seeing their CNC and fabrication department, I certainly was upon visiting their robotics and automation suites.
It was good to see local companies have sponsored entire sections of the UTC and hopefully one day we will be big enough to have a name on their door.
The rest of the afternoon was just as exciting. Watching 5 presentations by 5 bright young individuals with various ideas which could change the world around us. It was not only interesting to see the problems they have detected in the world around them from disability comforts to life saving equipment (with some pretty big flaws in currently available designs, now that it has been pointed out to me) it was also interesting to see the level of detail that went into their designs and calculations: weight, costs, durability, availability and how materials would interact were all covered.
When it came down to it, these young people were just too impressive, and we couldn’t choose just one candidate to go through to the finals so conceded in having to choose two.
All the best for the finals in October, and thank you to Scarborough UTC for nurturing such talented students!
