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
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!
