The Education Engineering team spent three intensive days at the very end of last term at Plymouth University. This block of time afforded the team a chance to work closely with AMEY (their partnership company) on viable solutions to the brief, that of creating flood alleviation scheme for a housing estate in Plymouth.
The first day saw the team (Lydie Jenks, Jordan Channon, Dan Gillard, Nicolas Cording and Oliver Wood) using their time to number crunch reams of data concerning rainfall and run off, to start computer modelling the topographic features and catchment area of the site. The long day culminated in a lecture by Professor Martin Laverne about the importance of Mathematics towards careers.
The second day the team donned high visibility jackets and got out on site with their mentor engineers from AMEY to take measurements and to physically see the flood area with its numerous considerations and possible solutions. The evening was rounded off with a lecture from Price Waterhouse, on how to budget and run a scheme, followed by an interactive talk with the University’s award winning robotics department.
Day three the team started to finalise solutions from the previous days and then presented their findings to the other ten attending schools.
It was a rewarding three days, thoroughly enjoyed by the team, much achieved and a clear vision of the way ahead towards the solution, the report and final presentation at the end of term.
