Last year LEGO Education® joined forces with the government’s Year of Engineering campaign and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) to give more children around the country the opportunity to meet engineering role-models and to take part in engaging STEM activities, as part of the Engineers of the Future competition. At the end of last year (December 2018) forty-four young engineers were the guests of honour at a special reception at the House of Commons on Wednesday the 12th December, where they showcased their award-winning engineering projects- all inspired by LEGO play.

Engineers of the Future

The students are part of 5 winning teams in the Engineers of the Future competition. The competition is a robotics and coding challenge. It inspired children aged 7 to 16 across the UK to get hands-on and creative with real engineering projects. They developed many ideas, such as renewable energy or sustainable water systems. The event, hosted by Stephen Metcalfe MP, took place at the House of Commons. It provided an opportunity for Parliamentarians to consider the central role of engineering to society. It also highlighted the importance of direct early experiences for children in inspiring and developing the engineers of tomorrow. LEGO Education® products are the perfect tools to create these early learning experiences. As part of the campaign, the Engineers of the Future roadshow visited primary schools across the UK. It focused on schools that hadn’t previously taken part in engineering activities. Led by engineers equipped with LEGO Education coding and robotic activities, the roadshow aimed to inspire the children. It gave them access to quality hands-on learning experiences to help them discover the exciting opportunities available to aspiring engineers.

LEGO Education®

Minister for the Year of Engineering Nusrat Ghani said: “Working with LEGO Education and the Institution of Engineering and Technology, we have been able get many schoolchildren involved in engineering projects for the first time – a vital way of showing young people from all backgrounds the amazing things they could achieve as engineers.” Victor Saeijs, Senior Vice President, Western Europe for the LEGO Group said: “Our core mission is to inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow, equipping children from an early age with the right skills to succeed, whatever their background or ambition.” The LEGO® MINDSTORMS® Education EV3 is one of the best tools out there for engaging secondary school students in STEM lessons. With the LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 pupils can learn STEM by designing, building, programming and testing robots. Through inspiring project based learning the LEGO MINDSTORMS encourages your pupils to dive into the world of computer programming. The robots can be made to carry out relatively complex tasks, record live data, react to environmental change, and much more. Girl classroom EV3

The Future of STEM

The engineering profession needs 203,000 skilled people each year to 2024 and has an annual shortage of 20,000 graduates. The workforce also faces a major lack of diversity. Only 12% of engineers are female and just 8% come from black, Asian or minority ethnic groups. The Year of Engineering campaign has been working with more than 1,400 partners to help change this. It gives young people in all corners of the UK the chance to experience engineering for themselves. They can meet engineering role models in their school and take part in hands on activities and workshops or engineering open doors events with their families. For more information about LEGO Education products click here.