Wed, 04 March, 2020
Certification Coordinator, Laura Crean, and Senior Company Certification Officer, Rosanne Kilbourn, volunteered at the recent ‘Defect Detectives’ activity held at TWI CL’s head office in Cambridge.
The activity saw 50 year 5 pupils, aged 9-10, from Fulbourn Primary School, participating in a technical activity based around the detection of welding defects.
The main activity on the day was a robotic inspection challenge using Lego Mindstorms EV3 kits. The pupils were split into teams and tasked with building and programming robots to assess the integrity of a simulated weld line. The robots needed to be programmed to travel along the simulated weld line before stopping and sounding an alert when a ‘defect’ was located. The challenge is based upon real world applications and demonstrated the importance of detecting defects that could otherwise render a structure unsafe.
The children were also required to choose a name for their teams and create a banner ahead of the final challenge to see which robot was the best at completing the detection task. The activity encouraged teamworking and design skills among the pupils, while also encouraging an interest in engineering.
The event was organised and supported by staff of TWI, The Welding Institute, TWI Certification Ltd, the Granta Centre and the Tipper Group with assistance from the UK Robogals series. The challenge was part of the Cambridge Launchpad series of school activity days.