Excitement in West Yorkshire!

The project was explained by getting both year groups to sit in the hall, the air was immediately filled with a sense of anticipation as the kids were excited with the prospect of being involved in such a project. The engineers introduced themselves followed by the musician taking them through a warm up routine which involved clapping a rhythm. 

The project was then explained and the follow up questions we got was with regards to whether they will really be part of such record breaking project; once confirmed the hall burst into frantic conversation with their peers to share their disbelief in being able to partake in such ambitious project.

Once the year groups were sent back to their classes, we followed to cover the first class which was year 5 students. They began to use chime bars to produce a melody.

Once the time came to place the kits on the desk, the kids could not stand the wait and fanatically reached for the parts! Multiple hand went up simultaneously to ask questions about the  parts present in the kits. The engineers emphasized that the ideas had to come from the kids, we were only there to aid them in bringing their ideas to life if significant struggle was encountered. The genuine happiness on the kids' faces as they undertook the trial and error approach was heartwarming to our engineers.

The engineers went round looking at the different mechanisms and praising the amazing efforts of the children, spurring further eagerness to complete their mechanism. The questions kept coming with one of the repeated ones being "is this what engineers do in their daily life?" This was confirmed by stating that though the application differs, the process of solving these problems with the resources available is the  same.

Thank you so so much to the staff and students at Greenside Primary School in Pudsey, West Yorkshire. The creativity we witnessed that day was remarkable. Not only were some designs very unorthodox, they managed to utilize some of the tools that the engineers viewed as to be beyond the grasp of children in this age group such as the bike break system. The common theme was looking at the mechanism and thinking 'wow, I would have never thought of doing it that way.' One Year 5 student told us a week later that she was still working on her Martial Arts themed design to compliment her favourite hobby and her new found interest in engineering. Fantastic work!