Digital Futures Programme: Celebrating Engineering Excellence

Towards the end of last year, LMG was selected to partner with the new Digital Futures programme for 14 – 19 year olds, at University Technical College (UTC) Heathrow in Northwood, Middlesex. I’ve written previously as to how the programme is unique in terms of its focus on digital infrastructure and the data centre industry — giving students the tools they need to succeed in technical careers within the sector and beyond.

Our work with UTC Heathrow continues to be rewarding, and this month, we ran our latest workshop with the students: an Engineering Challenge Day on data centre design, structured around two design challenges: one concerning WiFi, and one on CCTV.

Of course, we threw in some healthy competition, splitting the students into teams and offering Amazon vouchers to the winners in each category. We were blown away by the quality of the designs so suffice to say, choosing those winners was not easy. Both challenges were based on recent LMG work on the ground floor of a data centre, located in the Thames Valley.

The WiFi challenge

After explaining WiFi as a concept (you’d be surprised how many adults struggle here, never mind year 10 students), and outlining its importance in the data centre, we asked the students how they would provide optimal WiFi coverage and performance at the lowest possible cost in our example data centre. 

The task involved using as few wireless access points (WAPs) as possible while providing a minimum of -65dB coverage to all required areas of the building floorplans provided. With only coloured paper, a compass, pen/pencils, glue and scissors, the teams were given thirty minutes to do the work of a battle-hardened LMG engineer, with the winners being those who got it closest to the LMG design.

It was great to see how quickly the students took to the challenge, got engaged, and poured their efforts into designing solutions to achieve cost effective full WiFi coverage across the data centre, without causing frequency clashes.

The CCTV challenge

Similar to the first challenge, we first provided an overview of CCTV and its role in assuring the security of the data centre. We’re all so used to security cameras that we take them for granted, but they provide a fundamental role in smart building management. Once more, the task was to design optimal CCTV coverage at lowest possible cost in our example data centre.

This task was a little different. In addition to creating a coverage design using coloured dots representing different camera types, the teams were required to consider the power and connectivity (PoE) requirements in addition to providing adequate storage capacity. That meant deciding where to place the different camera types, and then calculating power budgets and storage requirements — lots of moving parts and plenty to think about.

Again, it was heartening to see how readily the teams got stuck in. The winner here really was too close to call, so the top two teams both went home with prizes that day. We couldn’t have asked for a better result.

What I learned

The students weren’t the only ones who came away having learned a few things.

I've always wondered why teachers teach: well qualified, committed people who don't get the financial rewards and respect they deserve. The following week, packing away our popup booth at UTC Heathrow's Open Evening, I found out.

I was approached by a couple of students. One of them explained that she'd attended our Engineering Challenge Day and just wanted to thank my colleagues and I for a great learning experience. She said her class had really enjoyed the insight that the LMG team had given into smart data centre design and that year 10 were all looking forward to the next Digital Futures challenge.

Her authenticity and enthusiasm were truly humbling and after a personally challenging week, made me feel ten feet tall.

Now I know why teachers teach.