Teenage engineering students sort out London's rail problems!

"This is the best day of my life" - Jamie, student, Sawyers Hall College, Brentwood

Last Friday ICE ventured to London’s Transport Museum (LTM) for the Transitions project showcase event. It was the culmination of four months of workshops developed by ICE London and BBC 21st Century Classroom (BBC 21CC) in partnership with the London Transport Museum.

Over 60 young people from 10 schools in London were involved, all on Engineering or Construction and the Built Environment diploma courses. On the showcase day, BBC’s Alice Bhandhukravi led the event interviewing students, teachers, ambassadors and representatives from ICE, LTM, the BBC and Crossrail. It was great to see such a large turnout for the final too, with an audience that included industry and media professionals, students and teachers.

The Transitions final attracted a diverse audience

We heard how the project had started back in January with site visits to four Crossrail stations: Paddington, Tottenham Court Road, Whitechapel and Canary Wharf. Whilst exploring these locations, the students worked with Crossrail staff and learnt about the different, real-life, engineering challenges facing each of the stations.

After these visits, the students spent time at London Transport Museum working with volunteer engineering ambassadors discussing problems like building underwater and what to do with excavated material from tunnels, all relevant to the various Crossrail stations.

The next step was to work with media professionals at BBC 21CC’s digital classroom in White City, where the students explored creative ways of using multimedia to showcase their work at the project finale.

BBC 21CC and students chat before the final

A great turnout to support their friends!

In the finale we had the pleasure of watching some of the video presentations the students had created, one on each of the four Crossrail locations. The films showed the students presenting their projects as newsreaders, presenters or chat show hosts, all playing their characters excellently! Hard hats, a few suppressed giggles from the "news readers" and some cheesy "now back to the studio" catchphrases kept the audience thoroughly entertained. Creativity is definitely not something these students lack!

But jokes and comedy sketches aside, it was really impressive to see the amount of research and preparation they did. The students investigated in depth the different issues that the stations face and got some great hands on experience of problem solving, interviewing, teamwork, and most importantly, a step into the real world of engineering.

Students presented to a full house


BBC's Alice Bhandhukravi hosted the final

"The results are truly inspiring. The pilot project has been a huge success and we look forward to developing the workshops further, bringing industry closer together with schools and supporting teachers as they demonstrate how exciting it is to be an engineer in London." - Miranda Housden, ICE London Director

Lots of people were involved in the Transitions project, but most importantly we need to say a big WELL DONE to the students for all their hard work and the very entertaining final presentations. Here's to many more Transitions in the future!

A final big round of applause for everyone who took part!

ICE West Midlands: UK Infrastructure Leaders Debate

ICE Director General, Tom Foulkes

Tom Foulkes, ICE Director General, and Antony Oliver, NCE editor, gave a fascinating insight into what they think is the bigger picture on the future of UK infrastructure during a pre-election event organized by ICE West Midlands in Birmingham last week (22 April).

The two well-known industry figures discussed the prospects for the civil engineering industry and also gave advice to the incoming government on how civil engineering can contribute to the UK’s economic recovery and low carbon aspirations.

A range of recommendations to the new government were put forward including the need for an infrastructure bank and the importance of prioritizing infrastructure requirements.

Foulkes cited a recent HM Treasury Strategy for National Infrastructure which identifies the need to spent £50bn a year on infrastructure for the next 10 years.

He said that ICE are currently assisting and can continue to assist future governments to build a vision and framework for infrastructure objectives.

Welcome steps towards meeting the above objectives included, according to Foulkes, the introduction of the Planning Act 2009, the creation of the Infrastructure Planning Commission led by Sir Michael Pitt and the creation of the post of Chief Construction Adviser.

With politics high on the agenda, Antony Oliver thought that more civil engineers standing for parliament would be a welcome change. Oliver posed one big challenge for the future of the industry: how do we balance infrastructure investment with the need to cut the budget deficit?

Oliver also addressed carbon as a currency and the need for engineers to face the challenge of re-thinking everything they do and embrace value management. He said “It’s possible to build anything but the price has to be right and we need to right people to do this”.

Visit the ICE West Midlands events page to make sure you don’t miss future ICE West Midlands events.

Jane Young
Jane Young is the regional marketing and communications executive for ICE West Midlands.

GSNet annual conference 2010 a big success

On April 9th and 10th, GSNet held its annual conference and this year’s venue was in Nottingham. The agenda for this year’s conference was packed full of items directly relating to this year’s GSNet business plan.

Delegates at this year's GSNet annual conference

Top of the agenda was to provide a guidance piece to both graduate and student members who are currently out of work or are facing the terrible prospect of not having a job once they leave university. The item was discussed at great length over both days with GSNet extremely keen to have a response to the graduate and student membership on this issue very soon. An article is expected to be printed in New Civil Engineer (NCE) magazine in the next couple of weeks. The item is also due to go back to all regions for further discussion as GSNet are keen to continue offering advice and support to graduate and student members.

Other issues discussed at conference included improved support for University initiatives and the continued improvement of communication links between the regions and between the regions and GSNet. Discussion papers from all these items went out to regions prior to conference for discussion at regional level and feedback was brought by each of the regional representatives. Summary notes of all these discussions can be found at the ICE GSNet website.

ICE President Paul Jowitt opened the second day of conference and discussed the challenges and opportunities facing graduate and student at this time. Professor Jowitt then opened the floor to Engineers without Borders who carried out a training session incorporating scenario building focusing on non-governmental organization (NGO) work being carried out abroad in the Developing Countries. Andrew Lamb (CEO, EWB-UK) also highlighted the opportunities available to graduates and students at this time and directed conference delegates towards the placements and schemes which are currently available for both individuals and companies.

Kieran Owens
Kieran is the Chairman of GSNet and is responsible for chairing the GSNet committee and executive, liaising with the ICE President and representing GSNet on council. Kieran will be contributing to the blog on a monthly basis with updates about GSNET.

The Election Campaign and Party Manifestos

ICE published a grid of its key policy recommendations and compared them against the manifestos of the main parties. That document can be downloaded from the ICE website.

The document provides a clear indication of how close Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties are to ICE positions. There is also a contrast between the manifestos of this campaign and those of 2005 – this document indicates how the concept of infrastructure and other related terms have significantly increased in importance within political discourse over the past five years.

ICE National Offices in the Devolved Administrations are also actively monitoring and engaging to take account of the local political realities in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.

ICE South West: A New Seminar and Conference Programme for 2010

ICE South West launched its new programme of monthly seminars in January 2010 and has so far covered the South West Regional Transport Strategy (January), Sustainable Energy (February) and Earthquake Engineering (March).

Sustainable Energy Conference, February 2010

The next key seminar, ‘Bridge Engineering: Maintaining our Strength’, takes place on 28 April 2010. This event will present delegates with the big issues in bridge engineering, as well as the technical background to bridge assessments, non-standard bridges and bridge eurocodes. It will also present illustrative case studies to delegates and will feature a presentation on the much anticipated Twin Sails Bridge, Poole.

In reality the bridge engineer faces a multitude of challenges; we will present key bridge features that can change the way a bridge functions, such as electronic tolling and the effect it has on capacity.

Key Speakers:

• Introduction – Richard Fish, Independent Consultant
• The Big Issues – Mike Winter, Dorset County Council, Chair of ADEPT Bridges Group, Member of UK Bridges Board
• Bridge Assessments – Graham Cole, Surrey County Council, Secretary of ADEPT Bridges Group, Member of UK Bridges Board
• When Non-Standard is Standard – Peter Radford, County Bridges and Structures Manager, Somerset County Council
• The New Poole Bridge – Peter Curran, Gifford
• Electronic Tolling: An option for increasing capacity – David List, General Manager, Tamar Bridge & Torpoint Ferry
• Bridge Eurocodes – Steve Denton, Parsons Brinckerhoff
• 8hr Rail Bridge Replacement – Deborah Elliott, Network Rail
• Flexi-arch Bridge Case Study – Liz Kirkham & Phil Raven, Gloucestershire Highways

Visit our website for further details and booking information.

Joanne Morgan and Charlotte Snooks
Joanne and Charlotte coordinate the programme of events for the ICE South West Region, including a full programme of evening meetings and a programme of monthly seminars.

ICE helps promote Civil Engineering to thousands of young people at Manchester’s Big Bang 2010

The Big Bang is a science and engineering event aimed at under-19s. It took place for the second time in March 2010, at the impressive Manchester Central Conference Centre (an old railway station!), and a small team of ICE staff, graduate members and QUEST scholars were there to take part.

There’s one main aim of the Big Bang fair– to promote science, engineering, technology and mathematics (STEM) careers to young people and address related skills gaps across the UK.

With over 22,000 school children, teachers and parents attending - three times as many as last year - The Big Bang was a huge success. It was also the biggest single celebration of science and engineering of its kind, and ICE was right in the thick of it.

The Big Bang 2010 was held at the Manchester Central Conference Centre and saw thousands of visitors over three days

ICE’s stand in the ‘Go Global’ zone featured a bridge construction game, which challenged students to put their science and maths knowledge into practice in the real world. The event gave us the chance to meet and inspire young people, to explain what civil engineers do and to promote the profession as a great career choice.

We also enjoyed chatting with teachers, career advisors and parents, who clearly play an important role in influencing young people. So as well as building new relationships, we were able to help raise the profile of civil engineering and meet with others in the industry.

Budding civil engineers enjoyed the chance to build bridges at the ICE stand

The Big Bang also took the chance to reward young achievers through awards and competitions like the 'UK Young Engineer of the Year' and the National Science & Engineering competition.

A number of prestigious guests were present, such as the HRH the Duke of Kent, Lord Mandelson and Olympic Gold Medalist Amy Williams. The BBC's Bang Goes the Theory presenters also attended the show, and some of them even arrived at the venue in a sustainable, coffee-powered car!

The event attracted plenty of national media coverage, featuring on the BBC, in national newspapers and in regional news networks across the UK.

We’re already looking forward to the next Big Bang event, which will take place at London’s ExCel from 10-12 March 2011. And after this year’s success, it promises to be the biggest Bang yet!

Notes from Uganda: The final chapter

This is the final chapter in a series of weekly updates from QUEST award winner Hayley Maxwell and her collegue Jessica Robinson, who are currently in Uganda helping to build rural classrooms.

Our last few days here have been sadly frustrating for several reasons. We returned from Pallisa to discover that the cleared section of the site had been burned to remove all traces of vegetation. Although this left the site half cleared, but we had hoped more might have been done in our absence. We were also disconcerted not to find any of the villagers working on the site.

It turns out that there is a boundary dispute and work has completely halted. Nobody seemed to quite know what was going on, so we went to see the chairman of the village. He explained that the landowner is disputing the area of land Building Tomorrow has bought. We then went to the home of the landowner to try and discuss the problem. Unfortunately he wasn’t there, but his wife was lovely and gave us some fresh eggs!

We had to leave the matter with Building Tomorrow as boundary disputes can get complicated. An article in the newspaper the other day said they can turn nasty and end in machete fights (though we’re sure this one won’t!). However, in typical Ugandan style a meeting between the charity, the landowner and surveyor was pushed back, then back again, then back some more!
We did have the opportunity to talk to the villagers about the school and what it will mean to them. Currently, a lot of them cannot afford the school fees for the private school nearby, and are eager to educate their children and ready to build the new school! We also met some of the children who will be attending, who don’t currently go to school but are very excited about starting!

Unfortunately, we have also been hit by illness this week which hampered our efforts. Hayley, Joseph and Jimmy have all been struck down at some point, and Metrine had to miss a computer ‘lesson’ due to sickness. We went to the surgery in Kampala to visit the very good English doctor who has served out here for 30 years and knows all possible Uganda-inflicted ailments and bugs!

We have introduced Metrine to the internet and set up her first email account – we hope she will stay in touch with us. We have also organised a computer training course at John’s facilities in Pallisa for a number of staff from the Crane Paradise.

For our last day today we visited the completed Building Tomorrow Academy at Gita, north of Kampala. We were encouraged to see such a well built school, although there are some problems with rain ingress, noise transfer and weld durability! We donated exercise books and pencils to every student who were pleased and excited to have visitors!

We can’t help but be disappointed with the lack of progress on site during our time here – but we have certainly learnt a lot and feel the knowledge we have imparted and the contacts we have made will assist Building Tomorrow’s future work. We finalised the classroom design and site layout based on the construction capabilities we have experienced first hand, although current estimated costs are inexplicably more than a little over budget! Something to pick up when we’re back in the UK.

We’re sad to be leaving. We’ve made many friends along our journey and are already planning a return trip next year – hopefully to coincide with the opening of the school. In the meantime, two other members of our award-winning team, Farah Naz and Chris Soley, are hoping to come out to Nakaseeta and to visit some of Building Tomorrow’s other Ugandan projects in August of this year.

Hayley Maxwell and Jessica Robinson

Hayley and Jessica work for Gifford and are part of a four strong team currently in Uganda. Hayley is an ICE member and won an ICE Quest Award to assist with her trip.