Latest news
Judging the crush factor
Judging an engineering challenge as part of recent National Apprenticeship Week celebrations, Sellafield Ltd’s Graham Norman, and Les Agnew were impressed with the skills on show.
Apprentices across GEN II training centres took part in an engineering challenge designed to test the skills of the first year apprentices. The apprentices had just four days to design and manufacture a can crusher within a £50 budget.
Six teams of two people took part in the challenge, which culminated in a judging and prize giving ceremony on Friday 10 February at Energus, Lillyhall.
The judging panel included Graham, Head of Plant Engineering and Les, Head of Training Standards and Ed McGee from Thomas Graham. The judges were later joined by Tony Cunningham, MP for Workington.
Graham said: “There was a high standard for such young, first year apprentices. It is terrific to see West Cumbria still so active in supporting modern engineering apprenticeships. Events such as these will help West Cumbria to continue to develop its engineering capabilities.”
Les said: “I was very impressed with the innovation and quality of the designs. It is good to see support from so many employers here today and it is a fitting end to National Apprenticeship Week.”
The winning team were Paul Cartwright and Dominic Miller from the GEN II Furness Skills Centre who won a selection of high quality tools and equipment donated by Thomas Graham.
Mike Smith, Chief Executive, GEN II said: “We felt the winning design showed real commercial potential and could be easily reproduced. The innovative horizontal crushing and hopper system ensured the can was not handled once crushed, which proved, in use, to be a valuable health and safety feature.”
