I had a very early start last Wednesday. To get to the other side of Suffolk and to be able to set out my stall before the children started arriving at 08:30 I had to be on the road before 7. This was all thanks to Dan Stephens, the STEM coordinator at Stour Valley Community School who’d asked me to go along to talk to the pupils there about studying STEM subjects and STEM careers in general. As a one man band I’m not able to employ anyone else, as much as I’d like to.

For once, the Sat Nav actually knew where we were going so I decided to trust it, and was rewarded by being there well on time, though not until after many of the other attendees had got there.

What an interesting day, I have to say. It was great to be able to talk to a lot of very pleasant and very interested young people, and I had quite a few excellent conversations with them, mainly about robotics, of course, but other stuff as well. Some really interesting and thought provoking discussions were had. I was especially pleased when I heard later that some of the less confident pupils at the school had shown a real interest. That’s the funny thing about robots. They just seem to get everyone talking.

The fair was really well organised. There were representatives from one man companies like myself, through local colleges, to the Army and multinationals like Pepsico and Bosch. It was a bonus for me to make some new contacts as well. Nice one, Dan!

I hope to be able to update this post with a couple of photos from the day a bit later. They’re not yet available, unfortunately.