Engineering Outreach at UTC Portsmouth

The Media Technology team were on the road again today with the Outside Broadcast truck to hopefully inspire the next generation of audio and video engineers. The team were invited to UTC Portsmouth by a mutual contact from the broadcast sector who realised that many students from the college would be highly interested in the broadcast and AV industries. The college takes students from year 10 through to year 13, teaching a range of GCSEs and A-levels as well as equivalent engineering qualifications with a focus on science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) careers. The college is founded with industry partners such as the Royal Navy, BAE Systems and QinetiQ with some excellent facilities and a true engineering focus their approach to education.

The Media Technology team hosted sessions across the year groups discussing the engineering behind broadcast systems, with the recent BBC Children in Need outside broadcast as a case study. We also looked at the relevance of Pythagoras and Trigonometry for stereo recording techniques during GCSE maths classes and delved into the perceptual coding techniques used by MP3 with computer science students. The highlight for the students was perhaps a tour of the outside broadcast truck and the opportunity to use our professional cameras and audio/vision mixers.

The course team were extremely impressed with the students and fielded some particularly perceptive questions during the day. It was great to hear that one of the sixth form students had already applied to our programme and we’d like to think a few more will seriously consider it following our visit. UTC’s head of engineering commented on the buzz that the day brought to the college and engineering teacher, Richard Clegg commented on how much the students got out of the day. We’d like to thank UTC Portsmouth for the invitation and look forward to arranging other events in the future.