Associate Director – Mechanical, James Laughlin and Associate Director – Structural Engineering, Mark Harris of Hamson Barron Smith enjoyed a busy day at Plymouth University last month, assisting St Peter’s School with their Go4Set competition.

Run by the Engineering Development Trust (EDT), the scheme links schools with employers and universities for a 10-week Science, Technology, Engineering and Mechanical (STEM) project. Teams had to come up with a design for an ECO-Hotel set in Iceland, with the students from St Peter’s coming away with Bronze Industrial Cadet certificates.

James and Mark provided mentoring support to the team, and have also both recently signed up to be STEM Ambassadors.

Mark said:” The reward that we get from being an ambassador and working with the students is that we get to see them improving and learning extra-curricular activities.  It’s impressive how enthusiastic and switched on the students can be if they apply themselves.

Mentoring them and sharing our knowledge not only helps them, but it keeps us on our toes and also reminds us how much we do know.  We work in a rewarding and interesting discipline, yet there is a distinct shortage of Engineers. Therefore promoting at School age can only help for the future.”