(From left to right: Jason Morgan BCAS President, Allan Crawford from ARC Ltd, Colette Kilpatrick from St. Nicholas Roman Catholic School in East Lothian and Chris Rochester Primary Engineer UK Director)

On the 28^th November, at the annual British Compressed Air Society (BCAS) Lunch, BCAS President Jason Morgan and Primary Engineer UK Director Chris Rochester announced the recipient of the BCAS Primary Engineer Rogers Knight Award for 2019 at The Savoy in London.  The award is presented each year to an engineering professional in recognition of the impact they have had, working with pupils and teachers as part of the Primary Engineer programmes.  Open to all teachers across the UK, to nominate their partner engineer, the Rogers Knight Award sees hundreds of entries from which the BCAS Board select one winner.  This year, the standard of entries was exceptional and after a tough deliberation, the award was presented to Allan Crawford from ARC Ltd nominated by Colette Kilpatrick from St. Nicholas Roman Catholic School in East Lothian.  Both Allan and Colette attended the prestigious BCAS Lunch at The Savoy to receive their awards.

“I was initially surprised as I didn’t know the school had nominated me, but I am very honoured to have won the award” said Crawford.  “For me, it was a way to pass on my enthusiasm for engineering to a new generation.  Not everyone will want to be an engineer, but I think it is important that anyone, who might consider it, can hear first-hand from someone who understands and enjoys the work.”

(From left to right: Jason Morgan BCAS President, Colette Kilpatrick from St. Nicholas Roman Catholic School in East Lothian, Chris Rochester Primary Engineer UK Director, and Allan Crawford from ARC Ltd)

Colette Kilpatrick added “I have to say, my school is delighted that ‘our’ engineer has been chosen to receive the Rogers Knight award.  Allan, for many years, has selflessly taken a couple of days out of his busy schedule to visit our school and talk to the children, from P1 right up to P7, about engineering and future careers within engineering for the ‘If you were an engineer, what would you do?’ competition. Being a mechanical engineer himself, he has been able to show our children the variety of vocations within this discipline: from software and CAD, right up to huge crane designs for nuclear submarines…that got their attention!!!

Engineering and STEM are a major part of our curriculum, but sometimes it can be difficult to show the science and link it to real engineering career opportunities.  Allan’s visits help us to achieve this. Many of last year’s P7’s, who are now at High School, in their leaving speeches, commented that they wanted to be engineers in the future and stated the work done with Allan had been one of the reasons that had inspired them.”

Jason Morgan, BCAS President said “BCAS is thrilled to again acknowledge an outstanding engineer who has made a significant difference to school pupils’ understanding of engineering and aspiration towards it, through the Primary Engineer Programmes.  Allan was truly a worthy winner of the Rogers Knight Award this year, from a selection of high calibre nominees.

We are delighted to announce our continued sponsorship of the Primary Engineer programme next year, helping to recognise the excellent work of the engineering community across the UK and encouraging the engineers of the future into an exciting and rewarding career.”

The post And the 2019 Rogers Knight Award winner is… first appeared on Primary Engineer.

The British Compressed Air Society (BCAS) has named this year’s recipient of the Primary Engineer Rogers Knight Award as Gary Kelleher, Product Support Sales Manager (GB) from Aylesford based BOMAG – the world market leader in the field of Compaction Technology. The award to Kelleher was in recognition of his contribution to furthering the engagement of primary pupils in STEM projects. It was made at a ceremony at the BCAS annual ball held at The Savoy Hotel on Saturday 24^th November 2018.

Kelleher was instrumental in not only working with local school teachers to demonstrate how to introduce Primary Engineer to school pupils, he also brought the children’s designs to life by visiting the school during class time, to help them build concept vehicles which demonstrated the importance of planning, measuring, accuracy and design. His involvement had a direct impact on the number of pupils from the school entering the Primary Engineer Leaders Award – a competition in which children are asked “If you were an engineer, what would you do?”, and then submit ideas for new inventions solving an identifiable problem.

What started off as a company CSR project reaching out to the community on the suggestion of BOMAG GB Managing Director Alan Batty, soon became a mainstream interest for Kelleher, from Maidstone. He was nominated for the Primary Engineer Rogers Knight Award by teacher Danielle Abley who is from Sandling Primary School which was able to take part in the Primary Engineer Programme due to funding from BOMAG and Canterbury Christ Church University.  Kelleher is no stranger to getting the best out of children – at weekends he also manages a local football team.

He said: “I am delighted to have received this award, it was totally unexpected. I visited the school to help teachers and pupils to plan the designs of their shoebox vehicles, explaining the value of each element. The smiles on their faces were a picture when their vehicles flew down the ramp in a straight line.

The vehicles for the older pupils involved building a wooden chassis and wiring up an electric motor to drive the car up a ramp. It required more patience, but you could see a great sense of achievement in each team when it all came together.

In the Primary Engineer Kent finals both teams that represented Sandling did very well, winning several awards on the day for performance and design. I thought the program offered a great practical experience for the pupils and hopefully it will have inspired some of the them to explore engineering in the future”.

Vanda Jones, Executive Director of BCAS said: “With the UK’s current shortfall of qualified engineers and an ageing, skilled workforce, we have been championing the Primary Engineer Programme for many years now. It gives pupils a fantastic opportunity to work with engineers and to enable teachers to embed engineering into their learning.

“It is through the passion and commitment of people like Gary that the industry is helping to encourage young people in to a future career in engineering and to plug our technology skills gap.

“We can’t think of a more deserving winner and our thanks and congratulations go to Gary and to all the children involved for their enthusiasm and fresh ideas”.

Chris Rochester, UK Director for Primary Engineer Programmes, creators of the awards said: “We created the Primary Engineer Rogers Knight Award to recognise annually one engineer who goes way beyond the call of duty. Gary’s commitment to the school supporting the teachers to become adept at delivering STEM projects to pupils makes him a deserving winner”.

The Primary Engineer Rogers Knight Award was inspired by an engineer who lived to the age of 99. Throughout his life, Rogers inspired everyone he met. He was a President of the British Compressed Air Society (BCAS), among many other achievements, and it is they who wanted to celebrate his inspirational life. The Primary Engineer Rogers Knight Award was established in 2015, with the first award presented in November 2016.

The post BCAS Announces 2018 winner of the Primary Engineer Rogers Knight Award first appeared on Primary Engineer.