Siemens and BMW launch 3D car manufacturing game
1 min read
An online car manufacturing game has been developed for schools by Siemens and BMW, as part of the Siemens Education Portal, launched in February last year.
The portal provides a central hub for teachers, students and parents to encourage young people to engage with engineering and manufacturing related subjects.
Juergen Maier, Siemens Industry managing director, explains that the game focuses on modern lean production processes and will allow school children to make virtual vehicles. It will now be rolled out across the UK and encourage students to explore how, for example, the new Minis are manufactured at the world leading Oxford Plant.
"Investing in education, skills and young people is absolutely critical if we are to develop the engineers of the future," states Maier.
"Working with BMW ... the interactive game provides an insight as to how the production line works, reinforcing the fact that advanced manufacturing in the automotive sector is capable of providing the highly skilled jobs of the future," he continues.
"Hopefully, that will inspire children as young as 11 to consider manufacturing for a long term career - which is one of our central skills objectives at Siemens."
For Simon Farrall, head of education and training for BMW UK, it's also about transforming the perceptions of young people and boosting the numbers of people working in the automotive sector.
"By embedding the game into schools up and down the country we can inspire and excite young people to consider a career in an engineering- and technology-based environment," he argues.
"Further still, we can develop our outreach activity with the intention of securing a strong and effective pipeline of young people curious about the world of manufacturing," he adds.
"We need more UK-based manufacturers to follow the example set by Siemens and BMW coming together to highlight the importance of teaching science, mathematics and engineering in our schools," says Professor Richard Parry Jones CBE, co-chair of the Automotive Council.
The portal has already been rolled out to every secondary school across the UK and is aiming to reach over 1.95 million pupils by 2014 and 4.5 million by 2016.
