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PrimarySTEM

Virtual Faraday Challenge

What is the Virtual Faraday Challenge?

Our 2021-2022 season of Faraday Challenge Days includes a Virtual Faraday Challenge to give young people more ways to get involved in the programme this year.

The Virtual Faraday Challenge is open for anyone between 7-15 years, and can be done at home, or in school, individually or as a group or family.

Based on a real-world problem, the Virtual Faraday Challenge brings together STEM education subjects (science, design and technology, engineering and maths) in an engaging way and encourages the development of young people’s problem solving and communication skills.

This season’s challenge

This season’s Virtual Faraday Challenge tasks young people to see if they can assist the work of the Institute of Healthcare Engineering and Estate Management (IHEEM) in designing a product to help IHEEM members service a children’s hospital and work in the way engineers do in designing a new product.

We all know how important doctors and nurses can be in helping us get better, but have you ever thought about the thousands of people involved in servicing our healthcare environments?

They use our most up to date scientific and technological developments to maintain the high quality of our healthcare environments and we want young people to do the same.

What we want young people to do

We want young people to design something to help IHEEM members service a children’s hospital.

Think of all the things that need doing to ensure the hospital environment meets the highest standards, particularly for children and young people, and consider what could be created to make someone’s job much easier.

Could they help support the work of IHEEM and engineer a solution to our Virtual Faraday Challenge?

The Virtual Faraday Challenge is available in the following categories:

  • Individual entry for ages 7 to 11
  • Group entry for ages 7 to 11
  • Individual entry for ages 11 to 15
  • Group entry for ages 11 to 15
  • Family entry (must be a maximum of 6 people and include no more than two adults and at least one person aged 7 to 15)

The brief for the challenge is given by video from our Faraday Challenge Day Challenge Leaders and young people have to demonstrate that they have the engineering skills required to think of a solution and produce a design of their idea.

The challenge does not require young people to have access to any equipment as they will only be submitting a design so it can be done at home or as a self-directed task.

But if they want to also build a model of their idea, we would love to see them!

Designed to inspire young people to get creative, there is no time limit, but we will only be able to judge their ideas on what they present to us.

Entries need to be submitted as a PowerPoint presentation following the guidance in the brief.

What you will receive

The best entries will receive a prize and may even feature on our website.

The competition will run until July 2022 and entries will be judged monthly. Find out more on the IET website.

About the IET

The IET has been inspiring young people from all walks of life for over 150 years, helping them access the amazing career opportunities available to them in engineering and technology.

As engineering and technology advances at a rapid rate and changes the world around us, it has never been more important to inspire young people into STEM.

The IET, along with its partner organisations, provides support to both teachers and students, helping to develop skills which are valuable not just in the engineering sector, but across the global economy.

We offer a wide range of free curriculum-linked resources, initiatives and programmes for schools/teachers, community group leaders and parents who are teaching STEM to young people from the age of four through to 19.

If you’d like to know more about our STEM education programmes and activities, please visit theiet.org/education or read our STEM brochure here.

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