FROM AN EARLY AGE WE’RE ASKED TO CHOOSE: ART OR SCIENCE? CREATIVITY OR ANALYSIS? BUT IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE ONE OR THE OTHER. DESIGN AND ENGINEERING’S A MIDDLE GROUND, WHERE BOTH DISCIPLINES ARE EQUALLY CRUCIAL.
WE'RE WORKING TO INSPIRE AND SUPPORT FUTURE EDISONS AND BRUNELS. HERE ARE SOME OF THE WAYS WE ARE DOING THIS:
GET INVOLVED...
We’re always looking for enthusiastic Design and technology, Engineering, Maths or Science teachers with good ideas to help us develop our education programmes. Get in touch
GENIUS OF BRITAIN
In a major new science series, being shown over five nights on Channel 4, James Dyson along with Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking, David Attenborough and Robert Winston celebrate the great thinkers and moments in British science, from Newton to the present day. The programs will be on every night, over five nights, Sunday 30th May – Thursday 3rd June at 9pm.
James Dyson will present the stories of Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke, James Watt, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Michael Faraday and Frank Whittle. There is a competition associated with the series. To win signed sketches by Dyson engineers and the accompanying Genius Britain DVD and book – enter the Genius of Britain competition on the Channel 4 website.
Click here to learn more
Ingenious Britain
Ingenious Britain
In 'Ingenious Britain', James Dyson calls for government to reawaken Britain’s innate creativity and competitive spirit. It looks at ways in which government can inspire young people to study Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths; raise the cultural importance of engineering; make better commercial use of the ideas that come out of universities; and provide financial support for start-ups and existing high tech companies to flourish.
James has drawn on the knowledge of fellow champions of British manufacturing including: Sir Anthony Bamford, Chairman of JCB; Sir Christopher Gent, Chairman of GlaxoSmithKline and Sir John Rose, Chief Executive of Rolls-Royce. With advice from these leading figures, James has developed a series of policy suggestions aimed at boosting Britain’s economy by inspiring and incentivising real, long-term action to make Britain a leading high tech nation.
The Liberal and Conservative coalition has pledged to consider the implementation of the Dyson Review to make the UK the leading high tech exporter in Europe, and refocus the research and development tax credit on high tech companies, small firms and start-ups.
Click here to learn more
The Design and Technology Association Excellence Awards 2010
We are very pleased to announce, The James Dyson Foundation Design and Technology Teacher of the Year Award, was won by Manjinder Sangha. Manjinder is Head of Technology at the Walsall Academy in the West Midlands and is a fantastic, well respected teacher. Manjinder has also worked closely with the Foundation team to create the teachers resources for the website.
This year the 11th Awards ceremony was held in London on Friday 19 March at the IET, Savoy Place.
On the night the award was presented by Scott Maguire. Scott is a RDD Manager at Dyson Ltd.
The James Dyson Foundation funds the award.
Image courtesy: Royal College of Art
In February 2009, the James Dyson Foundation donated £5 million to the Royal College of Art. It will fund a new building (to open in 2012) dedicated to young design and engineering potential. Along with the usual lecture halls and studios, the proposed structure has 40 incubator units – students will set up design businesses, experiment and develop ideas, all under the guidance and support of the Royal College of Art.
James Dyson said: "It's vital that we give young people the confidence to be inventive and the support to take risks. It’s through experimentation and failure that new ideas are born. As a nation we’ve become scared of taking risks, but I see risk and problem solving going hand in hand."
Watch a video put together by one of our teachers.
EDUCATION BOX
Sketching an idea, making a scale model and taking things apart to see how they actually work. Often the best way to learn is through a hands-on approach. So, with the help of teachers, we put together an educational resource helping young people to get an idea of what it’s like to be a design engineer. The Education Box contains a DC22 vacuum cleaner and the tools to help dismantle it. Students will explore how and why things are made and analyse each element of the design: material, construction, function...
Through a four-week loan period, teachers can emphasise that making mistakes can be positive – the only way to discover what works (and what doesn’t).
The box is free to schools, colleges and universities – we deliver it and arrange collection when the four weeks are up.
You can also download our new hands-on product analysis and reverse engineering resources which work alongside the Education box.
Design workshop at the Royal College of Art
DESIGN WORKSHOPS
Each year Dyson design engineers and scientists visit universities, colleges and schools across the UK. They share their design expertise with enthusiastic young people. Workshops give students a hands-on opportunity to try some of the methods key to Dyson's creative force: teamwork, sketching to communicate ideas and simple 3D modelling. This hands-on work is really valuable, but unfortunately, the James Dyson Foundation can’t visit every school. So if you’d like to get involved with the Foundation, why not first borrow the James Dyson Foundation Education Box?
TEACHER RESOURCES
We’ve also put together a set of materials to be used within classrooms and studios – posters, model kits, videos and presentations. They can be used with or without the Education Box and show that design engineering is an exciting, vital career.
BURSARIES & GRANTS
Budding designers and engineers have it tough. There’s little money available to them, which means little time to work on anything else – new ideas, solving problems, fine-tuning their inventions. Each year we give away a number of bursaries to students at the Royal College of Art, Bath University, and most recently, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. These bursaries help students to turn good ideas into viable products and research – and importantly, promising career opportunities too.