The Fort Vale Engineering Make It Enterprising Challenge 26 Jan 2012

Budding young engineers in Lancashire showed they have what it takes to ‘Make It in Manufacturing’ at an exciting event held last week.

The 13 and 14 year-old boys and girls from twelve high schools across the area were given the challenge to establish their own mini-manufacturing businesses and make a product to help earthquake victims.

Each team had to design, cost, build and market imaginative WAFFER (Water, Food, Fuel, Equipment and Resources) systems, containing equipment vital to support the public in the event of a city earthquake.
The free event was a collaboration between The Manufacturing Institute and Simonstone-based precision engineering company Fort Vale. The company is a world leader in the manufacture of valves and other fittings that enable the secure transportation of materials across the globe.
The event was part of a series of themed challenges which The Manufacturing Institute is supporting through their ‘Make It’ campaign, which aims to attract the brightest and best new talent into manufacturing by promoting the sector as an exciting and rewarding career option for young people.

On the day, teams completed a series of tasks, each taking on job roles from managing director to operations managers through to finance, sales and marketing managers.

Teams then developed a sales and marketing strategy and pitched their fully-costed ideas in a Dragons’ Den-style presentation to Fort Vale managers.

Ribblesdale High School (Clitheroe) was awarded the coveted winners trophy on the day, impressing the Dragons with their rescue container design. The judges praised the team’s use of robust and cost-effective raw materials and their use of environmentally-friendly solar panels as part of their design.

Meanwhile, the team from St. Bede’s Roman Catholic High School (Blackburn) wowed the judges with the development of their container which included ‘refill’ rescue capsules, allowing essential supplies to be sent to disaster areas more easily.

Nicola Crowther, Make It Campaign Manager, said:

“The Make It campaign is designed to give teenagers first-hand experience of what modern manufacturing is all about, and show the exciting and creative careers on offer. By putting pupils into a real-life situation of a natural disaster, we’re hoping to inspire a future generation of young talent for a sector that’s likely to create some of the UK’s top future jobs.”

Andrew Bryce, Director for Innovation at Fort Vale, said:

“It’s fantastic to see so many young people take an interest in engineering. We were very impressed by the teams who all put in a great deal of effort and showcased some imaginative ideas.

“This is the first time Fort Vale has been involved in an event like this and the day was brilliant. We brought down our won apprentices to help the pupils and they really enjoyed it too.

“We believe that young people are the future of the industry and hope that we have inspired some of them to come and join us when they leave school.”

Both schools will now go through to Make It’s Grand Regional Final to be held in summer 2012.

Click here to see photos from the day

Click here to see a video of the day