Year 10 Work Experience
As part of the Year 10 curriculum at Stour Valley Community School, we were required to do two weeks of work experience; otherwise, arrangements would be made within the school. I was fortunate enough to secure a week-long placement with a prominent engineering company in my local area called TWI (The Welding Institute), a global company that specializes in research and development in materials and how they are joined. For my second week, I asked a local garden centre if I could help out there, and they accepted. The centre had a variety of plants, outdoor ornaments, and a café.
The work experience at TWI was not typical work experience, as most of the week was spent taking tours around many of the research facilities on-site and having the opportunity to ask questions to industry-leading experts. On the first day, we had a workshop on how shape affects structural strength, introducing the concept of the second moment of area without directly mentioning it. In the afternoon, we toured the workshop area, looking at long-standing fatigue tests, different types of welding, and the invention of friction welding at the company.
On the second day, we had a workshop on plane crash investigations and how to determine modes of failure through fatigue, impact, and composite analysis, learning to differentiate their grain structures. We finished the afternoon by visiting the electron microscope and taking images of different failure modes. On the third day, we visited research facilities, including a composites department that used a hydraulic press inside an autoclave to produce high-density sheet carbon fibre. We each laid up a few plies of one of the panels and observed the work of a PhD student who was using a metal spike to create holes in sheets, going between the fibres to stretch the carbon strands and reduce stress concentrations in the material.
Another research facility focused on analysing metal failure modes using non-invasive methods (without breaking the piece apart). This was being used for oil pipelines by utilizing ferrous metals within a solution to magnetize the piece, revealing weak areas that were otherwise invisible. Ultrasonic cameras were also used to determine weaknesses. In the coating department, research was being conducted on ceramic coatings to add properties to materials, as well as using lasers to make materials hydrophobic by slightly negatively charging the surface, causing water (which is inherently negatively charged) to run off poorly from the treated areas. The last day was spent creating a small presentation on one of the topics we had learned about and presenting it to the experts who had taught us over the week.
My work experience at the garden centre involved simple tasks such as taking care of the plants by watering, clipping, and repotting those that had outgrown their pots. I also worked with one of the owners inside the store, operating the till, managing inventory by restocking shelves, and adding price tags. The owner was impressed with my work ethic and offered me the chance to work in the café for a day, where I learned how to make several types of coffee and tea and how to work the till. After my week at the garden centre, I was offered a part-time position in the café, where I worked for seven months until COVID temporarily closed the garden centre.
