Students get creative to promote assistive technologies

Pupils embraced their creative talents yesterday as they teamed-up with engineering students from the University of Sheffield to help advertise new products designed to aid people with disabilities.

More than 50 school children from across Sheffield were asked to imagine they worked as marketing consultants for a new engineering firm, who produce medical and assistive technologies. The pupils were then challenged to create a poster to showcase products which have been designed by students from the University's Faculty of Engineering.

The products designed by the engineering students form part of an ongoing project to help Kieron Norton, a local 11 year old boy who suffers from cerebral palsy. Using their engineering skills, students have designed commercially feasible products that will aid Kieron and other sufferers of cerebral palsy to operate more easily in their day-to-day life.

Ideas from the University students are currently in the initial concept design stage and range from products to help sufferers turn a page easily to accessible board games. In May, the winning creation will be picked with the aim of eventually turning it into a reality to help make Kieron's life easier.

The event, which was co-organised and supported by Business and Education South Yorkshire (B&E-SY), aimed to raise the aspirations of local children and allow them to have a taste of life as a budding engineer.

With the assistance of University engineering students, pupils created marketing posters for the products, ensuring product features were highlighted and the company name, logo, strap line and price were displayed.

A judging team then quizzed the pupils and engineering students on the product's features and their marketing decisions, before a winning team from each school was announced. The winners will come back to the University in May to judge the engineering students' final designs.

Elena Rodriguez-Falcon, senior lecturer at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Sheffield, said: "Our commitment to raise the aspirations of gifted and talented young minds was the chief motivation for this event. We are delighted that pupils from four local schools embraced the opportunity to visit the University of Sheffield to learn a little bit about what our engineering students do and what engineering is about."

Joseph Potts, aged 14 from Birley Community College, said: "The event has been a great way for me to embrace engineering and has helped us develop our presentation and communication skills. It's really inspired me to learn the importance of marketing a product well and has really broadened my horizons."

Notes for Editors:

The schools that attended the event were:

Birley Community College

Notre Dame High School

The City School

Westfield Sports College

Business and Education South Yorkshire (B&E-SY) is the leading strategic body established to develop education and business links activities in South Yorkshire. To find out more about B E-SY, visit the link below.

The Faculty of Engineering at the University of Sheffield is one of the largest in the UK. Its seven departments include over 3,000 students and 800 staff and have research-related income worth more than £40M per annum from government, industry and charity sources. The 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) confirmed that two thirds of the research carried out was either Internationally Excellent or Internationally Leading. The latest National Student Survey (NSS) shows our students to be some of the most satisfied in the country with 93 per cent of students satisfied and 91 per cent level employment or further study places.

The Faculty of Engineering has a long tradition of working with industry including Rolls-Royce, Network Rail and Siemens. Its industrial successes are exemplified by the award-winning Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) and the new £25 million Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (NAMRC). To find out more, visit the link below.

For further information please contact: Shemina Davis, Media Relations Officer, on 0114 2225339 or email: shemina.davis@sheffield.ac.uk

event calendar

check here for details of all upcoming b&e events and work placements.