March/April 2020

www.smartmachinesandfactories.com March/April 2020 | 35 | | PRIMARY ENGINEER | commitment to these changes, in the form of a poster manifesto! They will create infographics to communicate their decision-making process and a 60sec video to persuade others, like them, to make the same commitments to change. The outcomes will be shared alongside COP26 in November. Ultimately the aim is to see young people develop the necessary meta- skills to present their findings in a factual way, ensuring the veracity of the data and developing their negotiation skills based on evidence. If you would like to find out how to be involved in any way visit the website www.statwarscompetition.com After the grading is complete, the hard part begins with 20 judging panels considering the shortlisted entries from their region. Two per year group are selected, not based on gender just two good ideas. It’s fair to say this project is one of the very few ‘level playing field’ competitions where pupils from all schools can take part whatever their abilities or disabilities this project focuses on the solution to problems they have identified. Exhibitions this year will each display in the region of 3-400 of the shortlisted entries potentially present 22 awards per region and invite the engineering community to re-energise with the enthusiasm, care, fun and understanding of young people across the UK using engineering to solve their and others problems. If you would like to join the grading days, or attend the exhibitions please register via the website www.leadersaward.com If you were an engineer, what would you do? Thanks to Network Rail and Facebook we have seen a rise in the numbers of schools registering to take part in the Leaders Award ‘If you were an engineer what would you do? this year. You may have seen the ads running on Facebook or, thanks to Network Rail, at station screens across the country? The intention of the programme is to enable young people to discover the world of engineering in all its guises, understand its impact on the world and most importantly what routes there are to be coming one. The project has many inspirational aspects such as, pupils interviewing engineers, finding problems to solve, drawing and annotating them, letters are written to engineers asking them to build their ideas and with public exhibitions and university Proto-Teams building some of the ideas there is a lot of aspects to take into account. One of the least known is the judging process. All the entries are posted to Burnley where they are sorted and taken out to grading days where engineers are invited to read and grade them. It is this that excites the pupils – it will be an engineer reading their letters, looking at their drawings and awarding them a grade. The engineers often write a note back to the teacher which is included in the certificates that are digitally posted to the schools to be handed out at assemblies, taken home to show parents and pinned to many a fridge door! Of course the engineers also get something out of the process – this years ‘engineers inspiring children inspiring engineers’ limited edition badges.