Rethink Engineering 

The School of Engineering at UEA has a commitment to fostering a breadth of  talent from across the region. Our Outreach work includes a range of events and resources for students, parents/guardians, and educators.

With the expertise available at the Norwich Research Park and across the region, we nurture interest in engineering with robotics and 3D games workshops, summer schools, and other events. Our Outreach work is focused on encouraging and celebrating the present and future engineers of the world.

Upcoming Events

Scrapbot Olympics

Digitisation is happening! Digitisation uses our uniquely human ability to think and design to create new solutions for the world’s problems. If you find problems interesting and you like to know why things happen, digitisation is a great area to get into. To help you, we are providing eight schools with a free kit of electronics for groups of year 7-9 students to create a Robotic Olympian. All you need is your brains, your passion and some reclaimed materials to build it from. Robots will face a pantheon of four sporting contests to prove their worth:

  • Sumo
  • Hungry Hippos
  • Assault Course
  • Pinball

A design can enter any, or all, of the contests which will take place at Productivity East, the University of East Anglia on 15 June 2023. Email engineering@uea.ac.uk to get involved! Spaces are limited and on a first-come-first-served basis.

 

Explore Engineering Educators CPD session

This is a free, in-person continuous professional development (CPD) session taking place in summer. This event is ideal for secondary school teachers, trainee teachers and careers advisers. Post-16 and any secondary school staff are welcome to attend, regardless of role or discipline.

Registration will open late-March 2023, and will involve a quick online form. Stay in the loop with our Twitter and Instagram to be notified of when registration is open.

Tuesday 4 July 2023, 1pm to 5pm, in Productivity East. You’ll explore our hub for engineering and technology located on UEA campus in Norwich. The venue is fully wheelchair accessible with step-free access throughout.

  • Learn how you can motivate your curriculum and inspire your students through the big societal challenges engineers are working to tackle.
  • Provide you with information and resources about pathways into engineering in higher education, and as a professional career. Resources are tailored to each secondary year group.
  • Learn from professional engineers about the skills they value, and what they wish they had known at school.
  • Show you the importance of joined-up thinking skills linking maths, physics, chemistry, biology, IT, engineering, D&T, and even art, to excel as an engineer.
  • Tour our facilities, showing how these skills are put into practice through modern collaborative robotics, and 3D printing.
  • Learn about the emerging trends in the future graduate employment landscape, and how to equip your students now to succeed later in a rapidly changing world.

This CPD will contribute to the following Teacher Standards (TS):

TS1. Set high expectations which inspire, motivate and challenge pupils

TS3. demonstrate a critical understanding of developments in the subject and curriculum areas, and promote the value of scholarship

TS4. contribute to the design and provision of an engaging curriculum within the relevant subject area(s).

TS8. take responsibility for improving teaching through appropriate professional development, responding to advice and feedback from colleagues. Impact on students:

  • Understand the skills required and routes into engineering, both in higher education and as a professional career.
  • Understand the skills and subjects required to succeed in the future workforce (TS3).
  • Gain real-world relevance and motivation to their learning, through the exciting, innovative, and problem-based challenges engineers are tackling (TS1).
  • Be inspired by the creative challenges engineering provides. Impact on teachers:
  • Demonstrate the development of subject knowledge through understanding current and future challenges in engineering (TS3).
  • Be equipped with a range of real-world problems engineers are tackling to motivate, inspire, and engage students (TS4, TS8).
  • Understand the interconnected thinking required for entering the engineering profession, and how this requires students to link knowledge across many STEM areas (TS1).
  • Understand, and be equipped with resources to inform and support students about the many pathways into engineering (TS1).

Impact on school:

  • Inspire the pursuit of STEM subjects in students and the progression to higher education.
  • Equip students with skills favoured by the local (and beyond) engineering recruiters
  • Develop intra- and inter-departmental understanding of how discrete STEM curricula can be linked together through modern engineering challenges (TS4).

Have you heard?

There is a big engineering and technology community keen to support and encourage students. The following organisations offer lots of engineering inspiration and useful resources: