Plymouth University's first female robot footballer to receive a makeover as part of Engineering Education Scheme

A team of year 12 students from Plymouth High School for Girls have been tasked with giving Plymouth University’s star robot footballer Eva a makeover, as part of a national effort to engage more young people in the engineering profession.

Plymouth University set the challenge as part of its involvement with the Engineering Development Trust (EDT) who organise the nationally-run Engineering Education Scheme.

The scheme challenges teams of year 12 students from schools across the country to come up with solutions to a number of genuine scientific, engineering and technological problems suffered by businesses within their region.

Plymouth University set their team the challenge of designing a new face, hair and voice for the county’s favourite robot footballer, Eva, and also invited pupils from the South West’s eight participating schools onto campus to develop proposed solutions to companies’ problems, including designing a carbon footprint measuring system and coming up with a way to move blocks under ships in dry docks.

Each of the teams spent three days working with technicians from Plymouth University’s Schools of Marine Science and Engineering and Computing and Mathematics, and were given the opportunity to create working prototypes of their ideas using the University’s state-of-the-art 3D printer.

Steve Edmonds, Technical Manager at Plymouth University’s School of Marine Science and Engineering, said: “On their first day here the students had to decide how to solve their given problems and ask our technicians to help them source the equipment they needed to make prototypes of their ideas. They then spent the next two days working with our teams to make their models, and presented their ideas to us on the third day.

“The exciting thing about working with year 12 students is that they have not yet been taught formal thinking structures for problem-solving so they rely on their imaginations to come up with functional solutions.”

Clare Simpson, Senior Technician in Robotics at Plymouth University, who worked with the team designing Eva’s new features, added: “A lot of the girls I’m working with didn’t realise engineering could be about product design and using their imagination, but now they’re loving it and some have even said they’d like to go into a career in engineering, which I am thrilled about.”

Following their spell at Plymouth University, the teams have until March to finalise their solutions before presenting them to the local companies’ involved in the project, who will then decide whether to put the students’ ideas into practice.

Professor Neil James, Head of the School of Marine Science and Engineering, said: “Engineering is about problem solving, thinking outside the box and making something useful, so this project gives school pupils a good insight into the fundamentals of a career in engineering. As a University we also welcome the Engineering Education Scheme as a chance to show year 12 students what opportunities higher education can offer them.”

The eight schools taking part are Hele’s School, Liskeard School and Community College, Woodroffe High School, Tor Bridge High, Badminton School, Plymouth High School for Girls, Blundell’s School and Kelly College.