Steve is shortlisted for Technician of the Year

Tuesday, 13 August 2013

Steve Gould, Electronics Technician in the School of Systems Engineering on his graduation day

Steve Gould, Electronics Technician in the School of Systems Engineering, has been shortlisted for The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) Technician of the Year award.

The IET is one of the accrediting bodies for technicians and the recognised professional association for Engineers. As one of only three nominations, Steve has already made a huge achievement.

Steve's award will be in recognition of his exceptional contribution to engineering and technology. As he explained: "I believe in a new way of teaching undergraduates, in which technicians take a proactive role at all stages, I set out to create a challenge for our students that didn't just focus on theory, but integrated it with practical based experience, similar to that available in the commercial engineering world."

Steve set up the Cybernetic Challenge, during which students build a ‘rover' robot that will have to undertake challenges as if it was on a foreign planet. The challenge has proved to be so successful that the workload for it had to be reduced to prevent the students from skipping other lessons to work on their robots. He has since presented the now annual challenge at several events.

Steve has been an electronics technician since 2007 in the School of Systems Engineering from which he graduated with a BEng Electronic Engineering and Cybernetics degree in 2011 with a First, also receiving the Microchip Project of the Year prize in 2010 and the IET prize for the best Cybernetics examination results in 2011.

Professor Andy Hopper, IET President said: "The finalists should be very proud to be shortlisted. They were selected from a stellar line up of some of the most exceptional technicians working in their field."