National STEM exhibition comes to Rochdale to showcase regional talent

Posted by on 7 Jul 2022

The Rochdale Development Agency (RDA) and the Advanced Machinery & Productivity Institute (AMPI) have partnered with Primary Engineer to bring the 2022 ‘If you were an engineer, what would you do?’ Leaders Award ceremony and exhibition to Rochdale.

Following a rigorous judging panel which included representatives from AMPI, University of Manchester, University of Sheffield, Network Rail, Fives, Cummins, Indutrade, Siemens Energy, Siemens Mobility and Paul Simkiss, managing director of Simkiss Controls in Middleton and chair of the RDA.

The winning pupils and their families from Greater Manchester and Yorkshire have been invited to a prestigious awards ceremony in Rochdale today.

Their winning entries, over 200 in total, will be on display in Rochdale Central Library and we’re encouraging the general public and local schools and colleges to come along and see the amazing ideas the pupils have come up with to answer “If you were an engineer - what would you do?”

Exhibition opening times:
• Thursday 7 July 2pm – 6pm
• Friday 8 July 9am – 5pm
• Saturday 9 July 10am – 3pm
• Monday 11 July 9am – 5pm
• Tuesday 12 July 9am – 12pm

Schools and colleges are welcome to use the exhibition space for live lessons to inspire children and young people about STEM and engineering. Please contact L.Hurst@investinrochdale.co.uk for more information.

The Primary Engineers Leaders Award is a national competition open to school pupils from the ages of 3-19 and the competition encourages pupils to identify problems in the world around them and come up with innovative solutions.

Nathalie Cachet-Gaujard, Head of Partnerships for the North of England at Primary Engineer, commented: “Every year the Leaders Award Competition reveals the genuine innovation and creativity of the young people who take part. Some of the innovative designs are then brought to life by our University Partners who build prototypes, some with real industry potential.  We are delighted to work with AMPI and Rochdale who will host the award ceremony and exhibition of this year’s competition in early July”.

You can see some of the previous winners, and find out how the competition helps inspire the next generation of engineers in this podcast: Primary Engineer MacRobert Medal interviews with winners