UK gears up for World Skills

The UK has begun to choose its final squad for this year’s World Skills event, held in Calgary, Canada. The hunt is also on for competitors to represent the UK at World Skills 2011, which takes place in London. If you are 23 or younger in that year, and skilled in a vocational subject, this is the nearest you’ll come to representing your country at the ‘Olympics’ World Skills is a skills competition in which young people compete against one another in vocational subjects – from hairdressing and landscape gardening to industrial electronics and CAD. In the ‘Mechanical Engineering CADD’ section, Bournemouth University student William Darvill, and Martin Eusebi – who works for MB Roberts (Aerospace) in Glasgow – were recently chosen to join a squad of 30, following an intensive three-day trial. They – along the candidates in a host of other categories – will now receive intensive training to bring them up to competition standard. In addition to training in their specific discipline, candidates will learn other skills, such as mental and physiological training – in much the same way as athletes. Mike Westlake, who represented the UK in this category at World Skills 2007 in Japan, says: “Winning the national final and representing the UK in Japan was a real confidence booster for me.” He says that the recent squad selection event mirrored his own experiences at World Skills 2007. Day 1 was a reverse engineering exercise – a “horrific part that was all circular edges”, he says. Westlake used tools like vernier calipers and angle meters to measure exact dimensions, then made a sketch of the part before it was taken away. He then had the rest of the day to re-create the part in CAD, and create another technical drawing that would allow the part to be made. Other exercises included: a scaled assembly drawing (putting the components of a system together); designing parts in 3D, based on a drawing; and re-designing a complete part. “Right now they test your software knowledge – but it’s moving towards assessing your skills as a design engineer,” he says. These tasks must be done properly – and quickly. This can put a huge stress on candidates. Westlake went through his own crisis during the finals – realising that he had wasted an hour on a design that would not work. A brief session with his mentor – who reminded him how well he had done to reach this stage – convinced him that all was not lost. “It turned out to be my best scoring day,” he says. Of the 43 categories that will be contested at this year’s event, 16 are engineering-based. These include aeronautical engineering, automobile technology, CNC milling and turning, industrial electronics, mechatronics and welding. Simon Bartley, chief executive of UK Skills (www.ukskills.org.uk), said: “Five years ago, engineering generally withdrew from skills competitions – now it is back with a vengeance.” While companies need to give candidates time off to attend these courses, the training can actually help to ‘fast track’ their skills. Bartley says the training can move them from Level 3 to beyond Level 5. “That would normally take seven or 10 years,” he says. Candidates for World Skills 2011 – who must be 23 or younger in that year – have until this April to apply, through the World Skills UK website