Engineering the stars of the future

17th May 2013

A team of pupils from Greenhead College in Huddersfield have won a university award for their innovative turbo-charger component storage solution, which they made for Bradford-based engineering company BorgWarner.

The company challenged the team to come up with a way of making components easier to store and organise, with the aim of making their production process more efficient. The pupils were awarded the Sheffield Hallam University Award at a regional ceremony for the Engineering Education Scheme, held at the University last week, in partnership with the Engineering Development Trust. The annual event connects engineering companies with schools in order to help them find the engineering stars of the future. Companies challenge teams of pupils to find inventive solutions to real problems facing their companies. Principal lecturer in engineering at Sheffield Hallam, Dr Mark Thompson, said: "There are some very successful British companies involved in this challenge, and they all come to this event with a genuine engineering problem for the schools to work on. "This scheme is helping companies recruit innovative apprentices in years to come, and they support them through university. It also gives them a real product they can use in the factory. Schools benefit from closer links with industry and pupils that are inspired to work hard so they can study engineering." The Engineering Education Scheme is a year-long national project where Year 12 school and college students work with an engineering company and the Engineering Development Trust. The scheme includes a three-day residential workshop for students to work on their projects in the workshops at Sheffield Hallam, under the guidance of the University's engineering experts.