Students get an insight into the world of engineering

Oscar Clements, 17, explored the practical world of electromechanical engineering at Cardiff University's School of Engineering, while 15-year-olds Tom Crossley and Fernando Georgiou studied electronic engineering and cyber security at the University of Portsmouth.

Oscar has already won an Arkwright Scholarship, awarded to the most talented of young engineers in the country and plans to pursue engineering at university.

The Arkwright Energy Challenge, run in partnership between the educational charity, The Smallpiece Trust, The Arkwright Scholarships Trust and Cardiff University, saw Oscar spend three days designing, making and testing different systems which either generated, used or controlled energy.

Sponsored by The Institution for Engineering and Technology, he was one of 24 Arkwright scholars across the country given a valuable insight into the principles, systems and technologies in the expanding world of electromechanical engineering.

The students also found out about university life, toured the Millennium stadium and took part in a laser tag tournament.

"It was a really good taste into what studying engineering at university is like," he said.

Tom and Fernando, who this year sit their GCSEs, both want to go on to study engineering at university after their time in Portsmouth.

During their four day residential course, they had first-hand experience of the university's electronics department and were taught by engineers from GCHQ and QinetiQ.

The main objective of their course was to inspire and encourage them to consider careers in cyber security and electronics engineering.

They took part in 'solder and keep' workshops and gained hands on experience of electronics by designing and building circuits with immediately visible results.

The course, also made possible through the Smallpiece Trust, also included social activities including a movie night, bowling and dinner and disco.