Explorium Hosts JEDI: No Fooling Around this April 1st

While April 1st is usually known as the day of pranks, there was no fooling around when the Junior Engineer Development Initiative (JEDI) team headed to Explorium x UCD at Explorium - Ireland's National Sport & Science Centre. Eimear Quinn, Alexandra Broderick Khan and Zoe Morris traded the Lab at UCD for the centre, setting up a dedicated stand to share the JEDI project and engage with the next generation of junior engineers during their Easter break.

The day was filled with fun, practical tasks and conversation, all helping to break down stereotypes about engineering and helping children see the breadth of opportunities and subfields in which engineers work. The team chatted to children about the diverse settings engineers can work in, from airports to prosthetic labs to wind farms and everywhere in between. Children also had the opportunity to complete the ‘Draw an Engineer Test’. This was a fun activity for children to explore their own ideas of engineers and engineering.

Our budding engineers then got stuck into a design challenge by creating a concept sketch of a tea box. Within this task, children could either come up with their own idea or create a tea box design based on specific user requirements. Our team was amazed at the level of creativity. The stand included a variety of sample materials the children could view to decide which materials would best suit their design. Some children even made working prototypes using rubber tape, sellotape and masking tape to hold the materials together! While the children were busy designing, we had the fantastic opportunity to speak with parents about the work being carried out at the Cognition, Development and Learning (CDL) Lab. The turnout was great and each person who came to the stand was so enthusiastic.

We want to extend a huge thank you to Explorium for hosting us, as well as a big shout-out to the outstanding team there who do such amazing work promoting STEM to the public. The vibrant, science-driven environment they have created was the perfect backdrop for our stand. We left the day with a huge sense of amazement at the creativity and interest of each child, and so, despite it being April Fool's Day, it's no joke that the future of Irish engineering looks very bright!

To find more information about the JEDI programme please https://jedi-project.com/

Written by Zoe Morris.