Many will know that the BFPA support the Arkwright Scholarship Trust, which is a charity whose sole aim in life is to encourage high achieving students to take up the honourable profession of Engineering, or to more accurate to study the STEM subjects rather than be syphoned off into the world of Finance or Law.

The students are selected as they enter their ‘A’ level studies and the modest funds are split between them and the school which they attend for the purchase of project equipment and other pertinent study materials. While there is no guarantee that they will all become the Fluid Power Engineers of tomorrow there is certainly a greater chance that good well trained brains might well see engineering in general as a good career choice which is surely half the battle.

From time to time we here at Chipping Norton are sent a progress report from one of the sponsored students and though you would like to read the words of a young man clearly being inspired by the world of technology, this is an excerpt form a longer report.

“College is going okay for me. I’ve had three modular exams so far, 1 in Maths, 1 in Physics, and 1 in Further Maths. They were okay, except I dropped about 17 marks in the Maths exam, as I ran out of time at the end. Hopefully the grade boundaries will be quite low though, as most people I spoke to found it difficult as well. My Further Maths and Physics exams were easier, but I’ll have to wait for the results to see how I’ve done.

I also completed a module in Engineering at the start of January, but this was a piece of coursework instead. My Engineering teacher has marked it 57 out of 60, but the final mark could be higher or lower depending on how the EDEXCEL exam board moderate it. I’m working on another coursework module for Engineering at the moment, but this time I’ve got to make a product and accompanying portfolio, not just a report like the first one.

The product I’m making is an automatic shut off device for a pillar drill. Basically, the device needs to turn off the drill if someone enters the area around the drill and distracts the operator. I’ve created a circuit design including LDR’s and relays to detect if an operator is at the drill, and if someone enters the area around drill. The first LDR from the left will switch off the machine if there is no operator at the drill (i.e. the operator isn’t blocking a light beam to the LDR). The second and third LDR will turn off the machine if the light beams are broken (i.e. someone enters the area around the machine, breaking the beams). The signal lamp (LA1) represents the drill.