An exciting hands-on experience of Engineering

By Oana Lazar 

In the past 12 months as an Electronic Engineering student in my third year at the University of Southampton I took part in all the engineering outreach activities that came my way. My goal was (and still is) to inspire schoolchildren to pursue engineering by spreading my own enthusiasm for the subject. One of my most memorable outreach activities before Covid was with Hands on the Future™ (HOTF), a campaign aiming to interest school students in practical engineering.

In autumn 2019, I had the incredible opportunity and pleasure to support an activity by HOTF at the Get Inspired Southampton Careers Fair, as a student ambassador. The fair, held at the O2 Guildhall in Southampton, was attended by over 1300 school students, making it by far the biggest outreach event I’d taken part in that year!

HOTF showed their Rotor Challenge exhibit, for which they brought in the tail rotor assembly from a Lynx Mk9A helicopter (yes, you read that right!) and a collection of precision-machined bolts of slightly different diameters – and by ‘slightly’, I mean differences on the order of microns. Schoolchildren were taught to use digital Vernier calipers, and were challenged to accurately measure the diameter of each bolt and pick one which would precisely fit in a hole in the rotor blade and fix it to the hub, on the first try.

This introduced them to precision engineering in a very practical manner, showing that imperceptible differences between the seemingly identical bolts translate to a bolt which simply doesn’t fit in the hole, or one which fits but had a little bit of wiggle room. This is something which would go unnoticed in a non-precision system like a lawnmower, but which would lead to failures in a helicopter.

This created a great starting point for many conversations with the students, who were completely enthralled by the level of precision required in designing and creating a veritable piece of engineering marvel. There’s nothing quite like seeing a student’s eyes light up as a complicated concept finally ‘clicks’ for them!

The team at HOTF have an incredible understanding of what makes engineering exciting on a very personal level. One of the most striking memories I have of running the Rotor Challenge exhibit is showing the schoolchildren just how precise Vernier calipers can be, by getting them to measure the width of a single strand of their hair.

The pure joy on their faces as they found the calipers could in fact measure a hair’s breadth was an incredible thing to see. HOTF understand that it’s the small but unique experiences like this that really matter, and that will be truly memorable to schoolchildren later on. This is especially important when the time comes for them to make significant choices, such as choosing GCSE or A Level subjects.

Yet the HOTF organisers didn’t just roll in a chunk of a helicopter because ‘helicopters are cool’ or simply because they could do so. Helicopters are truly some of the most complex machines out there, with a multitude of interdependent systems, the most notable being the gearbox and mechanical levers and linkages present on the rotor.

This allowed me to branch out conversations to my own area of expertise – electronic engineering – but most importantly, gave HOTF plenty of room to link the challenge to the National Curriculum. They were able to bring a level of familiarity to the activity for the schoolchildren through subjects such as Physics, Design & Technology, and Art & Design, while also showcasing novel methods such as CAD and CAM to enrich the students’ education.

My own education was in Belgium, but my school followed the British education system. It was only when I started university that I realised just how different further education is to school. There are indeed a lot of lectures, as I had expected, but, to my pleasant surprise, there is also so much practical work where I’m given the freedom to design, tinker with, and develop my own projects throughout the course.

Despite many science experiments during GCSEs and above, I feel there isn’t enough focus on engineering or a hands-on approach to learning, and definitely (but not surprisingly!) no helicopters. Although schools focus on broadening career options to include engineering, I think this has only just started to shift to sparking schoolchildren’s interest in engineering itself. In this regard, HOTF are far ahead of the curve, putting smiles on many schoolchildren’s faces and providing them with a very real feel of engineering through an unforgettable experience, potentially inspiring them to pursue a career in engineering.

The author has won a high commendation in the UK Electronic Skills Foundation's Scholar of the Year award in 2020, the first time such a commendation has been made in the competition's 10-year history. She is currently on a 12-month industrial placement (a 'sandwich' year), which she is completing remotely from her home in Belgium, instead of Bristol as originally planned. She plans to return to Southampton for the 2021-22 academic year to complete her integrated Masters in Electronic Engineering. Throughout this, and despite the pandemic, she continues her role leading Invent Plus.