The "Falcon Initiative”

The "Falcon Initiative" was launched by the same partners, the RAeS and Boeing, in April 2015. The aim of this new idea is to provide the opportunity for 13-18 year olds to design and build a flight simulator. It will offer the opportunity to a broad cross section of young people, including girls and other under-represented groups, to engage in a practical, fun and educationally-relevant engineering and business project. The competition is in two phases. In Phase 1 ten schools will be selected to receive £500 funding with which to build prototype flight simulators; this to be achieved by March 2016. In Phase 2 the prototypes will be judged, and then two schools will be further selected, one from the north and one from the south of the UK. They will receive funding for a full simulator build to be completed by July 2017. Selection of schools for Phase 1 is due in late September 2015, and CAT will certainly be tracking this work as it progresses.

It is really good to see a working, practical and successful initiative to boost interest and competence in the STEM subjects. Perhaps this is a model that others could and should follow? – Chris Long.