BAE Systems RAF Museum Cosford visit

On Wednesday 30 year 7 students had the opportunity to join 6 other local schools for a day of activities about Biomimicry at the RAF Museum Cosford hosted by BAE systems. Biomimicry is all about how engineering takes its inspiration from nature, hence "bio" is for biology and "mimicry" means to copy.


After a short introduction the day was kicked off with a short talk from a farmer who brought in a goose and a chicken to show how birds fly. 


We then watched a sketch about an engineer, his daughter and his robot. They explained biomimicry by acting it out in a play and all about the science behind certain engineering ideas.


The rest of the day was made up for different workshops. The NEWA students first got the opportunity to build a rocket in pairs and shoot them to see who's design would fly the furthest.


 
















The second workshop was the "velcro wall" which compromised of a bouncy castle covered in velcro which the students got to stick themselves too!






The third and final workshop gave the students an opportunity to design an invention inspired by nature and then enter their designs in to a prize draw for VIP tickets to Big Bang Fair next year.


The students really enjoyed the day and overall rated it 9 out of 10!

Aircraft Factory building allocation

On Monday 21st November NEW Academy finally got allocated a building for the project! It is an old garage situated at the back of Foxley Campus next to Rakegate Primary School. It needs to be cleared and renovated but once finished will be the "Aircraft Factory" for years to come!


Work is already well under way. They have begun to clear the building out room by room. The facility contains one large area which will be the main workshops, a kitchen area, toilet facilities and 4 storage rooms.

Potential Volunteer's Launch Meeting (15th Nov)

Last night we held a launch meeting at Foxley Campus to welcome potential volunteers from local industry who are interested in helping out with the build. Contract finalisation is soon to be completed and the kit has arrived at Sky-craft, Spalding ready to be delivered whenever we are ready to receive it. So this meeting was all about informing the volunteers about the project and giving them a chance to ask questions.

We had visitors from Goodrich, RAF Cosford, BW&C Branch, Moog and other local businesses involved in aerospace. These people all have a wide range of experience in the field of engineering that will help NEWA students, and all students in the city impacted, see what a career in STEM looks like, but also teach them basic life skills along the way!

Michael Beetham Conservation Centre Visit (13th November)

The Michael Beetham Conservation Centre (MBCC) is one of the finest aircraft conservation centre's in the world. To enable greater public access and understanding of the centre's work for one special week it opened its doors to visitors  at RAF Museum Cosford, so on Monday 13th November we took 14 students along to have a look at this amazing exhibition.

The students were free to look around the exhibition and gained exclusive behind-the-scenes access to aircraft conservation work and see what Boeing Build a Plane project looks like on a big scale. They got to meet the apprentices and talk about what the apprenticeship with MBCC involves.

Our students pictured with Mr Evans

The students met Mr Harold Howard Evans who was a Wellington pilot in 1940-1945 during WWII. He flew on 29 operational flights from different bases in Britain and travelled as far as southern Germany. 

The students took 360 photos of the different exhibitions! But sadly we can't fit them all on the blog....so here are some of the best ones along with quotes about what they learnt from the visit.

"I learnt that something has big and heavy as a plane can still be airborne due to technology"- Kyle Hubbard 

 "I learnt that flying is not all fun and games, because for most people who flew in war it was life and death situation and some still find it difficult to talk about their flying experiences."- 

Abigail Shelton

 "I learnt that even thou the war was years ago the pilots that flew in WWII still find the experience traumatic"- Katie Louise Wallbank 

"I learnt that the planes are really big and that they have an apprenticeship course for students to fix plane."- Joe Wood

NEWA Open Evening BAP event

Last week was NEWA's open week for prospective students. For the open evening hosted at Northwood Campus in the reception area we put up the "School's build-a-plane" display and raised awareness on the project.

Visitors could enter the paper plane building competition and watch the video below to get a feel of what the project's about.

Ercall Wood Technology College Visit

Last Wednesday a group of NEWA staff went to visit Ercall wood; one of the 5 other school's that are also building a plane. Ercall Wood is 12months ahead of NEWA with their build and it was amazing to see what our future holds on store.





As can be seen in the photo's their plane is already starting to take shape! The students are extremely hands on with the project and even have their own Boeing overalls




The visit showed us how every peice of the build will have to be logged and stored properly. Kits for each part of the plane will have to be put together before anything can be built and all parts must be accounted for.