STEM Ambassadors
Our Quality and Lean Manager, Ben Feltham, was recently recognised by the Derbyshire Education Business Partnership for contributing 100 hours towards STEM ambassador activities. STEM Ambassadors volunteer their time to pass on industry expertise and skills to students, coming from a broad range of industries including civil engineering and construction.
Ben has been a STEM ambassador for the scheme since 2016 and has clocked up 100 hours of volunteering time, working with students from local schools including Quarrydale Academy in Sutton-inAshfield and Trent College in Long Eaton.
He joins an exclusive group of 200 professionals out of the 4,000 registered that has successfully passed this fantastic milestone. He was recently presented with a certificate to mark his achievement. Some of the projects Ben has worked on include:
The East Midlands Celebration and Assessment day
The East Midlands CAD is an annual celebration of the completion of the Go4SET initiative from the Engineering Development Trust, a nationwide scheme designed to encourage and engage young students into Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) subjects at school and in their future careers.
The 2019 event was held at Pride Park in Derby and attracted 49 school teams, with 4 awards given for Innovation, Best Project, Best Teamwork and Students Choice. Each team was assigned a STEM industry mentor and with their guidance the team had 10 weeks to research, develop, build and write a report on their chosen project. At the end of the 10 weeks, each team was required to submit four hard copies of their report, build a model of their design and prepare a display board to present their ideas in a five-minute presentation to their judging panel. This was then followed with fifteen minutes of questions in relation to their project.
As well as sitting on separate judging panels alongside our Local Authority Business Director Tiz Gibson, Ben Feltham, mentored a team of six year 8 students from Quarrydale Academy in Sutton-inAshfield throughout this year’s Go4SET Initiative.
Quarrydale successfully took home the award for the most Innovative Design for their “Stations of the Future” project – with the final design incorporating wireless car chargers, air tubes and elevators to access elevated pod areas, a VR lounge waiting room and sensory garden on the main platform.
McCann and Peter James Homes supporting local students as part of national go4set initiative
Students from Quarrydale Academy in Sutton-inAshfield recently went on a site visit to Kings Park in Bestwood – one of the latest developments from our house building division, Peter James Homes.
The students were required to complete the visit as part of their nationally recognised Go4SET initiative. Quality and Lean Manager, Ben Feltham, mentored the group for ten weeks and accompanied the students on their guided tour of the Kings Park development.
Gavin Brothers gave an introductory talk to the students about Peter James Homes and its team and provided background information relating to the house building and construction industries. He also presented examples of technical drawings and talked through the differences between greenfield and brownfield sites.
Other areas covered during the tour included the decision-making processes relating to what to build on a site, the time it takes to build a new home and the number of contractors and subcontractors required, the processes for planning and monitoring a site and the handover process to the sales team and customers with a specific focus on the aftercare process.
The students used the information gained from the tour to assist them with their Stations for the Future project. This requires the group to visit a local railway station and identify its working functions whilst proposing specifications for future designs and considering factors such as end use, sustainability, and energy consumption.
