EPIC Engineers STEM Workshop Delivery Guide

HS2 has a well-established hands-on STEM workshop ‘EPIC Engineers’ which we deliver in schools, for 11-14 year olds. This guide aims to help teachers and STEM Ambassadors who would like to deliver the EPIC Engineers STEM workshop in their own school contexts.

The pack includes:

• PowerPoint presentations and PDF worksheets needed to deliver a workshop.
• Detailed guidance notes for including handy tips and extension ideas.
• Guidance videos for teachers, explaining how to lead each activity.
• Introduction videos for students, to set the scene for each activity.

Overview:

Descriptions: Students develop their STEM powers, exploring the essential skills that are needed to be successful in a STEM career. Through a series of hands-on design and build team challenges, inspire your students to become EPIC engineers – Extraordinary People Initiating Change. Activities are underpinned by examples from the world of work, with students finding out about careers in transport infrastructure as they take on different roles in the challenges.

See below for a full breakdown of the activities and supporting videos.

Learning Objectives:

Students will learn to:

• Describe the STEM careers available in transport infrastructure.
• Describe the skills useful in a STEM working environment.
• Understand how railway infrastructure is developed to satisfy present and future needs.

Students will use all 8 of the Essential Skills.

Delivery notes:

Can be delivered as a full day cross-curricular project, or a two-hour Science or Maths focused lesson.

Students will need drawing materials, building materials such as paper straws, and a range of printed resources which we can be downloaded.

Stations of the Future:

Stations of the Future is a team-based design-and-present activity where students compete to design a futuristic train station considering future trends and the needs of all customers. Each team of four students will produce a plan for their station, presented as a top-down map view, drawn on an A2 piece of paper. Each member of the team will have a different real-life job role within the team and be responsible for the associated aspects of the design. At the end of the activity students will present their designs to the rest of the group.

Tunnel building:

In this activity students will design, construct and test a supporting structure for a cut and cover tunnel. Each team of four students will aim to build a structure that meets three tests:

• that it spans the full 400mm distance between the tunnel entrances of the testing jig.
• that the train can fit through it.
• that it can withstand the ‘ground pressure’ of the weighted testing bag being put on top of it.

Each structure will be weighed before testing, and the lightest structure that passes all three tests will be the winner.

Rail Rush!:

Rail Rush! is an educational board game-like activity to encourage students to consider the environmental and community impact of high-speed rail construction. Students will compete against others on their table to construct the highest point-scoring railway network on a map of the UK. The board and cards for the game will need to be printed before the session and students can cut them out as part of the activity.