Future engineers in the making: Haywards Heath College team up with global tech leader

Haywards Heath College is taking part in an exciting partnership with a global leader in semiconductor vacuum technology to inspire future STEM careers.

Edwards Vacuum in Burgess Hill has been working with the college on the Gold Level Industrial Cadets Award with the Engineering Development Trust (EDT).

The programme is an exciting collaboration between industry and education and is designed to inspire young people through real-world industry experiences to pursue careers in the STEM workforce of the future.   

The award project is of six months duration. It encompasses approximately 70 hours of work, the majority of which is mentored by Sam Ellis, lead student mentor and a product engineer at Edwards Vacuum.

Events which make up the STEM engineering award hours include a site visit to Edwards Vacuum, a university workshop day where students progress towards building their project and developing their solution to the task set by Edwards. There are also webinars run by the EDT.

This year, the team made a prototype scroll pump which took the students through various engineering concepts: 3D modelling, additive manufacturing, electronics design and software engineering.

As part of their assessment, the students will deliver a presentation and Q&A with industry experts. At a conference at University College London (UCL), students will present their work to other students and the university will also host the awards ceremony.

Teams which successfully pass the assessment achieve an Industrial Cadets Gold Award, which is highly regarded by top universities, degree apprenticeship providers, and STEM companies.

Each year, there are six students involved and they are studying a wide variety of courses including geography, maths, chemistry, biology, computer science, physics, art, graphic design and economics.

An additional STEM opportunity is through the college’s partnership with University College London’s (UCL) ORBYTS programme. 

Students work alongside a Doctoral Researcher for four months on real, live research, and present their work at a UCL summer conference, becoming co-authors on any resulting published international research papers. During the last two years, students have been working on projects such as searching for exocomets, and on determining the habitability of planets in and beyond the solar system. 

The work students contributed to last year, has already been presented at national astronomical conferences. This year’s contributions will be presented at the British Planetary Science Conference by Jake Hanlon, doctoral researcher and student mentor at UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory.    

Katren Bishop, Lecturer in Physics at Haywards Heath College, said:

“Engineering is the bridge between what we imagine, and what we can design and build. It encompasses every aspect of our lives, from clean drinking water and medical devices, cybersecurity, space exploration and our environment. 

“This is all made possible because engineering embraces failure – it improves the next design!

“By nurturing our students’ collaboration, team working, evaluation and communication, our superb industry mentors at Edwards are leading our next generation of engineers and scientists.”

Student Reicela Bluke, who took part in the ICA project, said: “I enjoyed this project as I was able to collaborate with new peers, talk to engineers from Edwards and have a tour of their facilities.

“I like that this project pushed our team to develop new and improve on old skills like research, communication, teamwork and writing academically.

“I especially liked the fact that we were able to see the project all the way through over the six months, from the initial research to designing, to making the three prototypes, all the way to the final assessment and presentation of the final, most improved prototype.”

Sam Ellis said: “Edwards is proud to take an active role in the communities in which it operates, especially where we can contribute in a way that reflects our commitment to STEM education and learning. 

“We have a solid STEM graduate programme and are happy to encourage future scientists and engineers. We at Edwards look forward to seeing our local communities developing towards a career in STEM.”

For more information on courses and upcoming events please click here