Features editor
A new gallery at the Science Museum aims to demonstrate to 11- to 15-year-olds the variety and skills involved in engineering careers
The Science Museum is the place to go if you want to see massive steam engines, aircraft hanging from the ceiling, Stephenson’s Rocket and the Apollo 10 crew capsule. Inspiration, certainly, and an unrivalled view of scientific and industrial heritage; but it’s probably not where you’d expect to go for careers advice. For the next three years, however, visitors will be able to see Engineer Your Future, a special exhibition aimed at encouraging 11-15 year olds to consider a career in engineering.
The exhibition was opened yesterday by the Prince of Wales, who was in a reflective mood. He opened his speech by saying that British engineering was facing a skills crisis, that society had a mistaken view of engineering and that the best way to prosperity was through a healthy industry that made things. So far, so uncontroversial, but he than confessed that he was actually quoting a speech he’d made in 1979. ‘Nothing has changed in 40 years,’ Prince Charles noted, ‘except that now everyone is running around like headless chickens trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.’
Headless chickens seemed like a slightly unkind description of the team behind Engineer Your Future, as it is undoubtedly meticulously planned. ‘It is a departure for us, but we spoke to our stakeholders and the engineering institutions and it seemed that we are actually perfectly placed to mount something like this,’ said Emma Hedderwick, project leader for the exhibition. Organisations included ABB, BT, EDF Energy, National Grid and Network Rail have contributed to the exhibition.
Well over a million children visit the Science Museum every year, and they are in a receptive mood; it has the most pre-booked school visits of any museum in the country. ‘Teachers just don’t generally have access to this sort of information, but we can present it in a way which is suitable for our target audience and also offer extra links via our website so teachers, pupils and their families can find out more about the bits that really interest them. For visits that are coming here specifically, we’ve also organised information for teachers to use pre-visit and follow-up material.
The exhibition is organised around a series of displays which explain some of the key skills that engineers need in a very wide variety of jobs. ‘The idea is that the children would see these and if it’s a skill they already have or just something that they enjoy, it’d give them the idea that they could develop that as a job, ’ said Emma
Actual physical exhibits are sparse; in fact there are only four — a development model of an America’s Cup yacht, a model of a house designed to withstand tsunamis, a flood barrier and a prosthetic arm. These are positioned at the entrance to the gallery, where they are accompanied by a short film featuring the engineers who worked on these projects speaking about how they adapt designs towards their goals and why they find their jobs rewarding. ‘We know 11-year-olds won’t read long labels, but they will watch films, especially with animated material; and if you put text in that, they absorb it much better,’ Emma explained.
The rest of the gallery is occupied by a series of interactive games designed so that several players can participate at the same time. The ‘Rugged Rovers’ game, developed with input from Mars Rover engineer and friend of The Engineer Abbie Hutty, allows players to design planetary rovers, place and size wheels on their chassis, and then see how far they can travel along a simulated rocky surface. ‘It gets very competitive’, said Emma, ‘and we have a downloadable app so you can play at your leisure on tablets or smartphones.’
Another game consists of a grid of blocks containing sections of conveyor belt, which players rotate to create a system to take baggage from check-in desks to aircraft, placing scales and security apparatus at appropriate points. Another is a driving game, where players navigate a townscape picking up engineers and delivering them to appropriate zones — energy, entertainment, waste, transport and so on — to help the town to run. ‘The games are developed out-of-house,’ Emma explained. ‘We told the designers what we wanted players to get out of them, and they were developed accordingly. But what was really important is that they would appeal equally to boys and girls, in terms of content, apeearance and so on. Our play test groups contain slightly more girls than boys. The last thing we want is for boys to rush in, take over all the player spaces and leave the girls standing around.’
Each game station is backed with a display that explains the principles it explores, and shows actual engineers who use these skills in their jobs. The sectors depicted range from civil engineering, energy and space to wild animal tracking, and include people who work within large organisations and entrepreneurs. ‘We want to show that whatever you’re interested in, there’s an engineering career that can get you there,’ Emma said. ‘It’s important to see that it’s not all building sites and hardhats, and if, say, you want to work in medicine there are engineering careers that do that, you don’t have to be a doctor or nurse to make important contributions.’
Everywhere there are exhortations to study science and maths — not physics and maths, because at the younger end of the age range, pupils are studying integrated sciences. And to save space, there are few explanations of how maths in particular is used in engineering, although this information is available in internet links. ‘It’s designed to be the start of a journey,’ Emma said. ‘We can’t show everything, but the advantage of the games approach is that we can demonstrate the principles in a fun and engaging way, actually getting people involved, without getting bogged down in detail.’
Emma confessed that she was most looking forward to seeing the gallery crowded with children and getting their feedback. ‘The school groups here for the opening seemed to love it,’ she said.
Sounds brilliant ! Getting over the playful aspects of engineering is nice. I like the multiple players aspect too, getting over that engineering is about teams as well as individuals. To maximize the value, thought, need to make sure that kids get pre- and post-visit maerials that connect them with real practical projects. Practical projecs that get them a ‘feeling for stuff’ – the subconscious feel for what will work and what won’t – that all engineers need.
“the best way to prosperity was through a healthy industry that made things. “ Say HRH in 1979 and ‘Nothing has changed in 40 years,’.
Well actually a lot has changed (and that will not be addressed by any new exhibits at the SM- interesting though I’m sure they are). What has changed over that period is that ‘making things’ and having an impact on the world (now called the human footprint) are both seen – even by our elites (whether prince Charles and his opposition to GM or the aristocratic Lord Melchett Ex ExecDirector of Greenpeace – downwards through the boardrooms ) is seen as either a Really bad thing, at best a necessary evil or have a defensive prefix added (eg ‘sustainable’ ‘agile’ or ‘advanced’ engineering). Making and comsuming stuff – some tell us even makes us ill!
In the past Engineering was seen expansive in all social, commercial (and cultural) sectors creating new Markets (eg Commercial flight and the automobile), new jobs for people and broadly a good thing. Now, when ironically things are better in the West, and increasingly so in the Developing world those elites both amplify the problems of say Climate change – and so only by cutting back can we address that problem – when in reality Engineering could really be ambitious and solve it in other ways- or say that people as consumers are the problem ‘so why make more’.
So Engineering has really become about low impact tinkering – hardly an industry or career to get excited about – or merely an occupation to make money for some faceless corporation as just another business function. No longer Expansive it (at least in the UK, and even Germany) is about ‘squeezing more out of less’ and having Growth without really having Growth.
Unless Engineering actually fights back again the ideas peddled by the like of HRH – and discusses and agues over real Ambition (getting to Mars, feeding and improving the lot and developing the economies of those in the developing world or simply building a new C21 century transport system closer top home) – which will inevitably require a big Impact and an increasing of the human footprint then nothing much will change in the next 40 years either.
‘except that now everyone is running around like headless chickens trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.’
“All the King’s horses and all the King’s men…couldn’t put Humpty together again?”
Substitute ‘next-King’s’, military….and ‘economy’?
Interesting that this item appeared on the same day that a bunch of ambulance chasing lawyers were castigated by no-less persons than the Minister and Constable of the Tower (former CIGS -whatever that was) for continuing to pursue (as it suited their pockets) baseless claims about mistreatment in Iraq. How much longer are we, trained in the sciences and engineering, ie true professionals, going to let these jumped-up clerks keep their hands unchallenged in the nation’s tills? Presumably until the likes of HRH -in who’s Courts his ‘Writ’ will one-day ‘run’- says stop. That is if he wishes there to be a State worth ruling when he gets the chance to do so.
Prince Charles is right in a broad sense – as a nation we are, and have been for years, shouting about the need for engineers but achieving too little. I hope and trust that the SM exhibition is a sensible exposure of the value of engineering; it certainly sounds it.
Whereas we can create bankers more or less at the touch of a bonus, good engineers – and technical people in general are formed in childhood. I hope that this exhibition will identify those who – perhaps without realising it – are destined for the intense joy and satisfaction that comes with the creation or discovery of things.
As for the childhood thing, it is up to parents, their friends and primary schools to provide the required motivational environment. Since many of these lacked that in their own childhood, it will take time to ramp up the interest. In the meantime, we must keep the pressure on!