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Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference: EP/F028717/1
Title: Cyberneering 2008 at Wonderama - Engineering in the Digital Age
Principal Investigator: Rea, Dr HJ
Other Investigators:
Ritchie, Professor JM MacPherson, Dr WN Herd, Dr J
Thomson, Dr GB
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Edinburgh Science Foundation Limited
Department: Sch of Engineering and Physical Science
Organisation: Heriot-Watt University
Scheme: Partnerships- Public Engage
Starts: 01 December 2007 Ends: 31 August 2008 Value (£): 90,391
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Design Engineering
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
No relevance to Underpinning Sectors
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Panel DatePanel NameOutcome
11 Oct 2007 Partnerships for Public Engagement Panel Announced
Summary on Grant Application Form
Cyberneering 2008, an exhibit and activity space at the Edinburgh International Science Festival's Wonderama venue where science and engineering students will engage both children and adults in a variety of activities based on Heriot-Watt University's EPSRC funded projects including SMI (Scottish Manufacturing Institutes) research projects. Here families will see how state-of-the art technologies can be used as creative and analytical tools in the engineering design process. The activities and exhibits will cover a number of engineering disciplines listed here:1 Manufacturing Engineering / Haptic Design , an activity developed for EPSRC PPE Grant EP/D067596/1 Making the Future ;2 Engineering Design / Design-a-Zook , based on work in the EPSRC IMRC Grand Challenge Grant EP/C534220/1 Immortal Information and Through Life Knowledge Management using CBBC's BAMZOOKi software;3 Mechanical Engineering / ROLAND an interactive robot display developed for EPSRC PPA GR/S80653/01 / Robot / Fact, fiction and future. 4 Electronic Engineering / Talking Robot Head , an exhibit developed for EPSRC PPE Grant EP/E033172/1 Engineering : A brighter, younger future ;5 Optical Engineering / Sensing with Light , a new hands on exhibit that will introduce the use of optical techniques for engineering applications.6 Chemical Engineering / Mixing it Up , a new chemical engineering exhibit that makes the link between visual computer simulations of mixing processes and the physical process as demonstrated by a small scale oscillatory baffled reactor.We feel that activities and exhibits at family orientated Science Festivals and Science Centres can play an important roll in educating and influencing young people's career choices. By showing both children and their accompanying adults that engineering is creative, enjoyable and of the digital age , children's positive views of engineering may be supported and encouraged by their family. In addition it is important to inform the public of the diverse skills required for engineering and in particular emphasise that they may already have some of those skills such as imagination, creativity, team working, problem solving and computing and may want to develop others: maths and sciences. Cyberneering 2008 builds on the proposers' experience from staging Cyberneering with Heriot-Watt at the 2007 Edinburgh International Science Festival (EISF) which show cased three activities/events, Haptic Design , Design-a-Zook and ROLAND . The prospers feel that it was the combination of activities that led to the overall success of the 2007 Cyberneering exhibit and feel that there is value in repeating this on a slightly larger scale in 2008. Lessons learned indicate that more interactive drop-in exhibits would appeal to, and reach a wider audience, while the hands-on activities with high engineer-to-participant ratio provide a quality experience for a large age-range of children and their adults. Cyberneering 2008 will include further developed versions of the three activities shown in 2007 together with three additional activities that cover electronics, optics, and chemical engineering. The overall theme will be to show a variety of engineering disciplines in the computer age.
Key Findings
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Organisation Website: http://www.hw.ac.uk