My time mentoring with the Engineering Experience Programme!

My name is Peter Holt, and I am a research software engineer in STFC’s Technology Department. This year, I had the absolute pleasure of getting involved in the Engineering Experience Programme (EEP) as a mentor and I wanted to give you an inside look at my experience!

The EEP pairs teams of sixth-form students with a group of mentors from STFC to complete challenging yet rewarding tasks chosen by the mentors. We aim to provide vital insights into the world of engineering and what could possibly be their future careers.

Building autonomous robots

I, alongside other members from Technology, was paired with South London’s Trinity School. We set them a challenge to design and build a prototype “Autonomous Road Quality Surveyor”.

Our first task was to create a brief for the project: design a robot that can navigate Britain’s roads autonomously and scan the road surface for issues and cracks which may develop into potholes or other defects.

This challenge incorporated many different aspects of STEM, from mechanical engineering for the robotic components to developing code to navigate the roads and analyse images.

Kicking off the project

We first met the students from Trinity School at the welcome launch of the EEP at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) Visitors Centre where we provided a tour of the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus and arranged a Q&A session with the team responsible for the Harwell’s own self-driving shuttle bus!

Our initial gatherings were more than just a series of introductions. They were the foundations of establishing our shared principles, from deciding how to manage the project to identifying our strengths and opportunities. This would guide our time together.

Early on, we struggled with some uncertainties, our new roles within the team, and what our expectations were of each other and ourselves. We as mentors were unsure what facilities our students had and what we could provide for them but were inspired by their ambitions to build a new robot (we’d have been just very happy with a cardboard model)! It was great to see that each student found their niche as time went on, from being interested and adept at researching the problem we were trying to solve to working with microcontrollers and minicomputers.

There was also the matter of writing a report and giving a presentation to cap off their experience with us. They also produced a poster, a copy of which I hang proudly on my office wall. I was so pleased that each student had contributed to these parts of the programme, and they delivered their presentation professionally and brilliantly at the EEP celebration event.

My personal growth

I am in the early stages of my career at STFC and work in a small and focused team where I don’t have much cross-department collaboration. The opportunity to become a mentor for this programme meant that I could work with engineers from across the many different areas of STFC. I am a research software engineer and I was paired with both a mechanical engineer and a systems design engineer from my department.

It also helped me develop my leadership skills as this experience put me in the uncommon position of being one of multiple leaders. This is vastly different to managing a person or team when you are the only person in charge. It meant that each decision, and the direction we took, would need to be discussed and agreed on before being implemented.

The most valuable thing for me to take away from being a mentor, besides being inspired by future generations of excited engineers and scientists, was the opportunity to work in a team. This experience has encouraged me to continue to develop myself in support of STFC’s future.

Written by Peter Holt