The Inspiring Engineers Scheme is now in its fifth year at Wilson’s and this year saw a record 30 Lower Sixth Wilson’s students take part. The scheme, run by engineering consultancy firm Mott MacDonald, is aimed at students interested in engineering and involves a six-month long project, working with professional engineering mentors on a hypothetical scenario involving rebuilding after a volcano eruption on Hawaii.

The project phase of the scheme culminated with a presentation day at Mott MacDonald at the end of March, when each group presented their project and prototype to their peers and a team of senior engineers from Mott MacDonald. This was then followed by a poster presentation of their work to engineers from across the company during a pizza lunch. Each group produced high-calibre projects and presented in a confident and knowledgeable manner. The two groups that particularly impressed the judges were the bridges group, who were highly commended, and the heavy machinery group who won the prize for the most innovative design.

On Friday, 21 April, a group of Year 12 students visited Imperial College's Civil Engineering department as the final part of the Inspiring Engineers scheme, where they spent the day seeing what a civil engineering degree would be like at a top university. They also completed a time-pressured project to design a bridge for the HS2 project while working in groups with students from other schools. The quality of these presentations was excellent, particularly when considering how little time they had to complete a fairly complex task. It was impressive to see our students working collaboratively with their peers from other schools, sharing ideas and skills, and coming up with innovative solutions to the challenge at hand.

Current Year 11s interested in engineering should keep an eye out for the return of the Inspiring Engineers Scheme in September, where we will continue to use the valuable relationship that has built up between the school and Mott MacDonald.