What Paige Brown did with her prize money…

Paige won the Health Zone in I’m an Engineer in March 2012, she tells us how she spent her winnings: Following my I’m an Engineer win in the Health Zone, I started a science photography initiative. I spent $800 dollars on a used Canon T3i SLR camera, and started a website for my science photography at paigesphotos.photoshelter.com. Since my original camera purchase, I used my I’m an Engineer winnings as well as personal funds to buy extra camera lenses, including a Canon 100mm Macro lens that can magnify objects up to two times their actual size. My goal was to provide inspiring and thought-provoking photography of the world at the small scale that we don’t always see up close, the scale of plants and insects. This is also known as macro photography. By using a special macro lens and other specialized equipment, I can magnify the size of tiny insects … Continue reading

Posted on August 9, 2013 by ModShane in News, Winner Reports | Comments Off on What Paige Brown did with her prize money…

Environment Zone summary

Our self-funded March event went superbly. Nearly 400 students took part. Have a quick read through the daily updates below  for a flavour of the event and the Zone Report gives more depth. You can see the feedback that shows just how much the students and engineers get out of the event. As student ‘jessica123’ said about the 5 engineers “thank you sooo much for your time I have learnt a lot your are very nice people”   Daily updates Day 1 – Football, Grand Designs and the Olympics Day 2 – 3D printing, heat pumps and bridges Day 3 – Helicopters, straw huts and coal mines Day 4 – Sustainability in sport, Saudi Arabian cities and bamboo houses Day 5 – Global warming, Scottish independence and rocket science Day 6 – Carrot-powered cars, model rockets and transparent soil Day 7 – First eviction! Day 8 – Robots, red matter and petrol-powered … Continue reading

Posted on April 8, 2013 by ModShane in News | Comments Off on Environment Zone summary

What Robin Stafford-Allen did with his prize money…

Robin won the I’m an Engineer Energy Zone in March 2012. His plan all along was to donate it to the CCFE Charitable Fund which is “used to support science and other projects with local schools, and to support local community groups with grants for particular pieces of equipment. So far this has included both primary and secondary schools with a strong emphasis on the science teaching and support.” Here’s how the the donation was used… We presented the cheque for the prizemonies to the school, St Gregory The Great in Oxford. The money is being spent on a Microwave transmitter and receiver as shown in the picture foreground. This will be very useful for the year 12 and year 13 Physics and science programs. Various aspects of wave and wave transmission and interference can be demonstrated and researched.

Posted on February 5, 2013 by ModShane in News, Winner Reports | Comments Off on What Robin Stafford-Allen did with his prize money…

What James Vokes did with his prize money…

James won the I’m an Engineer Transport Zone in March 2012. Here’s how he spent his prize money… Despite destroying the first prize cheque I was given (by “testing” whether a cheque can survive a full washing machine cycle). I was extremely happy to win. My goal with the prize money was to try introduce and enthuse more people to Software Engineering. Fortunately at the same time a British charity Raspberry Pi Foundation was planning to release a new ultra cheap computer with their goal that it be used to “promote the study of computer science and related topics, especially at school level, and to put the fun back into learning computing”. So I used the prize money to buy some of these Raspberry Pi’s and the kit associated with them and plan to introduce them to pupils at tech fairs and hopefully in the future as part of a … Continue reading

Posted on November 28, 2012 by ModShane in News, Winner Reports | Comments Off on What James Vokes did with his prize money…

Evaluating I’m a Engineer

In March 2012 we ran I’m an Engineer for the first time. We’ve had engineers take part in the sister I’m a Scientist event so running a version specifically for engineers was an obvious move. Before the event started we had some unknowns, despite considering ourselves well versed in running online engagement events. Would engineers want to take part? Would we be able to recruit Maths and D&T teachers? What questions would students ask? When it came to evaluation time these were some of the key questions to answer. We’ve collected feedback from teachers, students and engineers. We’ve used their responses and data from the site to evaluate the event, and have written up our findings in the report below. I’m an Engineer evaluation report Here’s a summary of what we found: Did engineers want to take part? Yes. By the end of the first three months we had over … Continue reading

Posted on November 16, 2012 by ModShane in Evaluation, News | Comments Off on Evaluating I’m a Engineer

Putting the E Word into Engagement

A thought as I leave: there’s more difference between PR and PE than between science and engineering #eword — Steve Cross (@steve_x) October 25, 2012 The Royal Academy of Engineering hosted a day on October 25th about Engineering (the E word) Engagement. It was a very interesting day which left me with many challenges and thoughts. Just what you want from a seminar. The programme for the day consisted of two panel sessions in the morning, followed by an open session. After that we were treated to a series of 5 minutes briefings on past Ingenious projects and Mark Miodownik’s History of Engineering. I’m going to focus on the first three sessions: Is engineering engagement different from science engagement? Where are all the engineers? Open session: How do we tell what good engagement is? Is engineering engagement different from science engagement? There was a lot of crossover between the first … Continue reading

Posted on November 2, 2012 by ModShane in News, Project News | Comments Off on Putting the E Word into Engagement

What Chris Hill did with his prize money…

Chris won the Water Zone in I’m an Engineer back in March. We asked Chris Hill to write a brief report on what he’s done with his prize money. Here’s what he said.. I passed the cheque for £500 to OWL bikes and they were delighted. The work they do there is fantastic and passes on real, hands-on engineering skills to young people who may otherwise be overlooked by society and never given this opportunity. I am a huge supporter of this charity and have given lots of money and volunteer time to it over the years since it started. OWL Bikes provides vocational training for disabled and disadvantaged people by recycling and refurbishing unwanted bikes to sell to the public at reasonable prices. I met the three young people in the photos and their dexterity and hand-eye co-ordination has improved massively over the few weeks they have been involved … Continue reading

Posted on October 30, 2012 by ModShane in News, Winner Reports | Comments Off on What Chris Hill did with his prize money…

How do we visualise Engineering?

Hi I’m Gareth. I’ve designed the ‘I’m a Scientist’ and the ‘I’m an Engineer’ (so far) websites. On ‘I’m an Engineer’ we’ve got the basic design and colour ways in place but what we’re missing is the icons and graphics that make the site seem much more relevant to engineering. I’m a designer not an engineer so I’m looking for some suggestions from the engineering community about what things sum up or represent engineering to you. With I’m a Scientist we choose a conical flask and Van der Graaf generator symbols amongst others. Each zone also has a logo and you can see the most recent ones on the I’m a Scientist home page. What are the equivalents for engineering? Please don’t send designs I’m just looking to pick your brains and gather your comments on what sums up engineering for you. If you can help please leave a comment … Continue reading

Posted on November 29, 2011 by ModShane in News, Project News | Comments Off on How do we visualise Engineering?

I’m an Engineer – The Plan

We can only run these events through co-operation with the Teaching and Engineering communities. That’s why we want to share our plan of action in the run up to the first set of events in March 2012. The plan is not comprehensive so please ask any questions in the comments section and we’ll try to answer them in future news posts. The action plan breaks down into five main sections: Planning, Recruitment, Event, Evaluation, Sustainability. Planning – October/November 1. Zone Selection The first thing we need to do is define the event. We will be running six zones in March. All will be themed. That means the engineers in those zones will need to have some connection to the theme. For example in the Transport Zone we could have engineers building oil pipelines, marine engineers in shipbuilding, or software engineers working on flight systems. It’s fairly general. A nuclear power … Continue reading

Posted on October 6, 2011 by ModShane in News, Project News | Comments Off on I’m an Engineer – The Plan