Amey Challenge Cup | Glasgow 2023  

On Wednesday 20^th September 2023, Amey South-West Trunk Roads hosted a Challenge Cup event at its Polmadie office in Glasgow. The Challenge Cup is an annual event created by Amey to mark International Women in Engineering Day, inspiring schoolgirls to consider a career in engineering and what this could involve as well as provide an insight into the roles available in the industry. Two Glasgow schools were invited to take part: Shawlands Academy and St Mungo’s High School.   

The pupils were given a real-life engineering scenario of a collapsed bridge and had to create a design to replace it. They had to take into consideration cost, timeline for build, the environment, and health and safety. The teams then presented their solution to their client who gave feedback, which had to be incorporated into a revised design. At the end of the day, each group had to give a 10-minute presentation to a panel of judges from our South-West team: Brian Park, Douglas Cairns, and Jack Dunsmuir.  The pupils gave fantastic presentations and were extremely engaged throughout the day.

To measure the impact of the day, we used the Essential Skills Framework. The framework is made up of eight skills required to thrive in education and employment, including listening, problem solving, and teamwork. Each pupil had to rate themselves at the start of the day against those skills and work on the skills they had rated themselves lowest. At the end of the day the pupils had to remark themselves on their essential skills. Thanks to everyone who gave their time to be involved and thank you to Shawlands Academy and St Mungo’s High School for taking part.