2014

The I’m an Engineer Christmas Lectures Zone was designed to run alongside the Royal Institution’s annual lecture series, this year titled ‘Sparks Will Fly!’ and hosted by Danielle George. The aim of this zone was to provide a way for interested viewers to find answers to questions prompted by the lectures. This was the second time we had run a Christmas Lectures Zone. 263 students from 10 different schools were active in the CHAT and ASK sections, whilst 37 members of the public logged in through social media. 18 engineers were online to answer questions. Three engineers, Andy, Steve, and Tim, contributed over 80% of lines of chat and 60% of the answers to questions.  Across most measures, engagement was up from the previous year. Read the full report here.  

A lot of the discussions in the Health Zone were focused on the medical theme: from drug delivery to repairing joints, probably due to students being able to relate to the topic. The live chats were particularly engaging, with lots of interesting health queries, but also a lot of general questions about an engineer’s  work and life, and this mix was also apparent in ASK.   You can download the full zone report here.  

The students in the Food Zone seemed to really engage with the specific work of each of the engineers, as well as asking general food and diet questions, even though this was the quietest zone of I’m an Engineer in June 2014.  As with previous zones there was a good balance between questions about careers and engineering itself. The Food Zone winner, Zoe George, stands out as really engaging with the students. She gave over a third of the answers in the zone, and over half of all the live chat from the engineers. You can download the full zone report here (PDF).  

The Cities Zone had the highest number of registered students for all the zones, which kept the site lively and busy. The live chats were great with a lot of really engaged classes, and questions focused on engineering’s contribution to the future of buildings, cities and energy. All the engineers in the zone were really engaged, sharing the load of questions answering and chatting in the ASK and CHAT sections between all 5 of them, as well as lots of discussion on Twitter. They were so even that there was a tie on the first eviction day! You can see the full zone report here (PDF).