Twenty-eight pupils from Year 5 spent a full day at the company’s bases in Castleham and Churchfields Industrial Estate, learning how businesses operate and visiting various Marshall-Tufflex departments, seeing products manufactured and assembled and getting the chance to engineer their own assemblies with Lego.
Ahead of the visit the pupils were challenged with designing a simple 2D drawing suitable for conversion into a 3D object by Marshall-Tufflex’s in-house 3D printer. Every pupil produced a drawing to be judged by the company’s design team. Company designers were astounded by the level of detail and thought displayed by the children and the many excellent drawings produced.
Two winning drawings by Truly Lawless and Immy Webb were chosen and the pupils shown how the images are converted into 3D printed objects which they were then able to take away.
‘We had a really good, productive day with the children,’ said Rob Muggridge, Marshall-Tufflex technical services electrical engineer. ‘It was a pleasure to have the pupils visit and find out more about our business, the relevance of engineering in their every day lives and discover that factories can be fun. As a company we are very keen to promote careers in engineering and encourage more youngsters from our local area to consider working with us. We’ve had many schools visit over the last year or so and each time the pupils have gone away with a real enthusiasm for engineering.’
School spokesman Nicole Edouard said, ‘Class 5NE at Ark Blacklands Primary Academy took part in a Marshall-Tufflex manufacturing tour which gave the children the chance to learn about businesses in an interactive environment. They participated in a number of activities as well as getting to see a 3D printer in action, based on a couple of their own designs. They thoroughly enjoyed this experience. One child quoted on the coach back to school ‘this was the best school trip ever!’ The visit encouraged the children to reflect on their own futures and aspirations.’
