We were delighted to welcome Step Up Move On Year 10 & 11 students from the Children’s University this month.
Hull and East Yorkshire (HEY) Children’s University is a charity that strives to give every child the opportunities they deserve, no matter what circumstances they were born into. The aim of the Step Up Move On programme is to support young people to achieve their future aspirations and consider different career choices. During a day filled with engaging activities, the Aura team provided students with valuable insights into STEM careers and environmentally-friendly innovations. This was achieved through a combination of team-building exercises and immersive escape rooms.
On arrival the students where greeted by InventX Innovation Manager Anton James who introduced the students to an engineering team building exercise, which encouraged the students to work together to build a crane out of a selection of pieces of metal materials and nuts and bolts. The second team building activity introduced the students to the world of Virtual Reality.
Team building activities where followed by a tour of InventX, Aura Innovation Centre’s innovation space. Throughout the tour the student’s were introduced to a range of specialist equipment used to help businesses improve their products and processes including 3D printers, microscopy and lasers – very cool!
Having worked up an appetite the student’s enjoyed some lunch on the Mezzanine followed by a brisk walk around the nature trail for some fresh air and connecting with nature
In the afternoon the students where tasks with trying to escape the low carbon labyrinth and crack two escape rooms based on real-world environmentally friendly projects from local businesses. The students where split into teams and where competing to find the final piece of the earth puzzle.
The first escape room was themed around flood resilience challenging the students to tackle flooding issues in order to raise the floating house which contained the key to the safe. Time was of the essence in this task to access key before the flood waters rose. The second escape room was centred around InventX and challenged the students to use microscopes to find the hidden code to access the locked 3D printers.
Jo Coates, University Liaison Officer for Hey Children’s University said
“Thank you Anton James and Joanne Clemenson for your energy and enthusiasm in inspiring our students to feel empowered and confident… Thank you to Brian Houston and the whole team for introducing our young people to consider opening their minds to innovation!”
The Aura team was delighted to have played a part in introducing these students to the captivating world of innovation and STEM – think they enjoyed it more than the students!