Engineered: A Week of Wonder is a programme of interactive events celebrating the world of Engineering in Ireland. As part of this national event, Lifetime Lab held an Engineering Day on Thursday, 22nd of February 2007.

One of the activities that took place during the day was the Fabulous Family Construction Challenge. Families were given the task of constructing a replica of a well known Cork building from a collection of recycled materials. There were a few gasps when photographs of buildings such as the Glucksman Gallery, Shandon Church and Cork City Hall were unveiled as some of the structures.

The fabulous families set their 60 minute timers and the teams got down to work. Such creative use of resources could never have been foreseen! Young children were busily colouring card the shade of the render of their building, adults were frantically carving out windows and doors, teenagers were creatively adding intricate details to give their building the finishing touches-all in all, there was some great teamwork on display. Cork City Council engineers judged each challenge and were astounded at the quality of the models created. The families thoroughly enjoyed themselves and were very proud of their efforts. They all received a t-shirt, certificate of participation and the winning family received a 3D jigsaw to keep the family in ‘construction mode’ for those wet weekends ahead.

Another fun activity that took place on the day was an Interactive Engineering Quiz. Adults and children enjoyed using their ‘voting pods’ to vote the answers to the quiz which appeared on an interactive whiteboard. A sample question from the quiz was:

Which of these former Lord Mayors of Cork was an engineer?

a. Deirdre Clune
b. Sean Martin
c. Colm Burke

There appeared to be a wealth of engineering knowledge present on the day. Of course the Cork City Council Engineers were not allowed to participate in this activity! The engineers were far too busy chatting to families about their various engineering disciplines and the exciting engineering projects they are involved in with Cork City Council. The public got an opportunity to see and hear information on the engineering feat that is the Lee Tunnel, to name but one of the engineering stands that was on display.

Thank you to all the Cork City Council staff and engineers who were present at Engineering Day, volunteering their services. Although, it does look like they enjoyed it!