Hunt is on to find Gloucestershire's engineers of the future (From Cotswold Journal)

Hunt is on to find Gloucestershire's engineers of the future

2:13pm Friday 22nd March 2013 in News

Get 2,013 students working with Gloucestershire businesses in 2013 – that’s the aim of a new project to encourage a future generation of engineers in the county.

The Challenge 2013 campaign, which is run by Gloucestershire’s Local Enterprise Partnership, will work with around 40 primary schools and six county-based engineering and manufacturing businesses with the hope of getting 2,013 school children interested in engineering and technology.

Mike Curran, Development Manager at GFirst LEP, said: “The aim of the project is to change the perception of engineering and manufacturing amongst primary school children. We want to inform them about the career opportunities available and tell them about the qualifications and skills required for a future career in engineering and manufacturing. By targeting 2,013 children in 2013 we hope we can inspire a future generation of engineers here in Gloucestershire.”

The project will include school assemblies focussed on robotics with the support of a local engineering company and a whole day workshop for one class of up to 36 students introducing them to computer programming. The students will then use this knowledge to program a device which they have made from a construction kit. The best team of three students from each school will then be invited to visit a local company, based within their district, to learn how they use computers within manufacturing.

The project was launched after a study by Gloucestershire LEP’s Advanced Engineering Sector Group showed that many companies in the engineering and manufacturing sector are finding it difficult to recruit.

A number of businesses involved in the group including Renishaw, Delphi, Moog and SPP Pumps have agreed to host visits for the winning students.