About Engineering Open House Day
Educational and fun
Engineering Open House Day is all about highlighting the important roles that engineers play in everyday life, with participating venues and organisations demonstrating the creativity and excitement behind engineering careers.
Each week we will be releasing a new episode from our Engineering Open House Day Live for you to enjoy at home over the school summer holidays.
So, keep your eyes peeled! And remember to enter our #EOHDPaperPlane challenge to be in with a chance of winning a cool STEM prize. See how to be involved and read our terms and conditions.
Or watch the whole show today on-demand!
Episode 1: Aerospace
What is the difference between aerospace engineering and aeronautical engineering? Well, we explored this with Sophie Harker and Jack Heslewood and they taught us all about the things that engineers do to make things fly - whether that be a jumbo jet, a tiny drone or a huge rocketship!
Jack Heslewood is a Rocket Scientist as well as our current Mr World and he joined us on our Engineering Open House Day Live show to talk to us about his career within engineering, how he became Mr World, as well as explaining to the history of space and rocket ships.
Where does space start? How many different types of spacecrafts are there? How do we bring things back down from space? Jack is here to answer all of our outer this world questions!
Sophie Harker is a senior aerodynamicist and aspiring astronaut. She is also one of the youngest engineers to ever achieve Chartered Engineer status with the RAeS, achieving the title at just 25 years old. We had the pleasure of having Sophie with us live on our Engineering Open House Day show, where she told her engineering story.
To help us with the Engineering Open House Day paper plane challenge, aviation engineer and aspiring astronaut, Sophie Harker shows us how to make a wind tunnel with just a few things from around the house, to help us understand how planes fly.
For this year’s Engineering Open House Day, we put our engineering guests up to a very big challenge – how far can they fly their own paper aeroplane! With just 60 seconds on the clock and one sheet of A4 paper, they had to use their engineering skills to make a plane that would go the distance. But can Jack Heslewood, our current Mr World and Rocket Engineer go the distance? Watch to find out.
For this year’s Engineering Open House Day, we put our engineering guests up to a very big challenge – how far can they fly their own paper aeroplane! With just 60 seconds on the clock and one sheet of A4 paper, they had to use their engineering skills to make a plane that would go the distance. But can Sophie Harker, Aviation Engineer and aspiring astronaut go the distance? Watch the find out.
Episode 2: Electricity
In this episode of Engineering Open House Day Live, we will be sparking your children’s interest with all things electric! Exploring how electricity is all around us. Whether that be powering their computer or tablet, maybe our cars on the driveway are run by electric, how it helps to run hospitals and how it is even within our bodies.
For this year’s Engineering Open House Day, we put our engineering guests up to a very big challenge – how far can they fly their own paper aeroplane! With just 60 seconds on the clock and one sheet of A4 paper, they had to use their engineering skills to make a plane that would go the distance.
But can electrical engineer, Shrouk El-Attar go the distance? Watch to find out.
Electronic engineer, Shrouk El-Attar, joined us for our Engineering Open House Day Live 2021, where she told us all about being an electrical engineer and what she does to engineer us a better future. But not only that, but she also showed us how to make an electronic circuit with just paper and a special conductive pen which makes an LED emit light! Our host, Mark Reynard and co-host and IET President, Danielle George, also took on the challenge to show just how easy it is to make a circuit with paper and a pen.
We were joined by Dangerous Dan from Mad Science East in our Engineering Open House Day Live show 2021. How much pressure is in the air? Does air weigh anything? Would you believe there is an African elephant on your head? Well, Dan uncovered the facts about air and air pressure, while covering our studio in toilet roll with the help of a leaf blower?! Warning: Lots of fun, lots of toilet roll and you will want your mum and dad to get a leaf blower!
Episode 3: Transport
From planes, trains, to automobiles - we asked our epic engineers just how they engineer us technology that takes us all over the world!
Our IET President, Danielle George, joined us for Engineering Open House Day Live to have her engineering brain tested! You sent in your burning STEM questions, that mum and dad just could not answer, and our very own engineer told us why raspberries are red, why boats float and how we can even make our very own invisibility cloak.
Ella Podmore is a Fault Analysis Engineer at McLaren Automotive Ltd, and the IET’s 2020 Young Women Engineer Award winner. She joined us live for Engineering Open House Day where she gave us insight into what she does at McLaren. And she even tells us what it is like to drive one of the supercars!
For this year’s Engineering Open House Day, we put our engineering guests up to a very big challenge – how far can they fly their own paper aeroplane! With just 60 seconds on the clock and one sheet of A4 paper, they had to use their engineering skills to make a plane that would go the distance.
But can out 2020/2021 IET President, Danielle George, go the distance? Watch to find out.
For this year’s Engineering Open House Day, we put our engineering guests up to a very big challenge – how far can they fly their own paper aeroplane! With just 60 seconds on the clock and one sheet of A4 paper, they had to use their engineering skills to make a plane that would go the distance.
But can our 2020 WYE winner and McLaren engineer, Ella Podmore, go the distance? Watch to find out.
Episode 4: Energy and Sustainability
Energy can be found in many different forms – heat, light, motion, electrical, chemical, nuclear, and gravity. In this episode of our Engineering Open House Day live, our host, Mark Reynard, explored some of the ways companies across the UK are working towards using energy for a more sustainable and greener future.
Amber O’Connor is the engineer and commercialisation manager at Siemens Energy, and she joined us live for our Engineering Open House Day show to tell us about her role at Siemens Energy and the 200 gas turbines she looks after. From gas turbines to aeroplanes to electricity – she explains how it all works!
Hydrogen is a clean fuel that, when consumed in a fuel cell, produces only water. Hydrogen can be produced from a variety of domestic resources, such as natural gas, nuclear power, biomass, and renewable power like solar and wind.
Mixing water with salt, Amber O’Connor shows us in a cool experiment how to make hydrogen! The result should be a pop - can she do it?
For this year’s Engineering Open House Day, we put our engineering guests up to a very big challenge – how far can they fly their own paper aeroplane! With just 60 seconds on the clock and one sheet of A4 paper, they had to use their engineering skills to make a plane that would go the distance.
But can Amber O’Connor go the distance? Watch to find out.