As you can probably imagine, the Engineering Department at the University of Cambridge are pretty good at solving problems. However, they also like to find out other people think- especially those who experience a problem on a daily basis. That’s why we teamed up with professors from the University to film a schools project based around creative problem solving. The University has been conducting research into lighting conditions in classrooms all over the country and found a number of issues. One of these was the annoying ‘bright spot’ that appears on whiteboards when a projector is being used. The ‘spot’ makes it extremely difficult for students to look at presentations, images and video. Dr. Sam Waller and Dr. Mark Winterbottom worked with students at Comberton Village College and Cottenham Village College to come up with ideas of how to solve this classroom problem. The Somersault cameras were on hand to capture all of this creativity unfolding as the students worked in groups and then presented ideas back to the class. We also filmed interviews with both the project leads in the University grounds.
Dr. Sam Waller was pleased with how the day unfolded:
“Making a difference is about having a great idea, but it’s also about getting the detail right to make sure it delivers success from every perspective. We challenged this team of students to come up with one quick improvement and I was really impressed that they identified a problem and came up with a well thought out solution.”
The videos will be displayed in the Outreach and Schools section of the Engineering department website.
