UTC Amazon Challenge Day

On Wednesday 8th March around 200 students from four UTCs – Greater Peterborough UTC, UTC Swindon, Aylesbury UTC and Abbeywood Community School (Engineering Academy) – joined in with an Amazon UK Challenge Day.

Each UTC was visited by a team from local Amazon Fulfilment Centres, made up of Apprentices, Apprentice Managers and Reliability Maintenance Engineers, who supported the students with their designs and prototype builds of lockers to allow drone delivery of packages. The brief was given via live video link from Project Management Apprentice Sophie Newbery and Apprenticeship Programme Senior Manager at Amazon UK Ian Grant. All UTCs had received project packs containing cardboard, plastic screws, tools and a sheet outlining the brief. They teams had around 3 hours to design and build their ideas, interspersed with careers talks both via live video link and from the Amazon UK representatives at their UTCs, offering the opportunity for the students to quiz them on life at Amazon.

Amazon UK were very impressed with what the students came up with in the short time frame available. Amazon staff members supporting the event found it a rewarding day, with one commenting “I had a fantastic day and I was really pleased with everyone’s efforts, it was great to see outside the box ideas for the challenge. I think the execution from the Apprenticeship team was really well planned and made the day easy for us mentors. Thanks for having me!”

Nick Lamb, Principal at Aylesbury UTC who took part in the Challenge Day said, “It’s been great to see students with high levels of educational needs, who wouldn’t normally put themselves forward for public speaking or team work activities, getting stuck into the Amazon Challenge. A really positive day for Aylesbury UTC”.

Congratulations to the winners from all four UTCs, who will have the opportunity to present their designs in person to a core Amazon team at the Amazon Headquarters in London in the summer.