This June and July will see around 48 students attend three Mission to Mars work experiences. The first just completed was for Year 1 & 2 students from Cornwall College St Austell. The students are taking the BTEC National Foundation Diploma in Information Technology. The work experience provided them with an insight into how the industry works.
Team Work
The students were split into four teams. Each was effectively working against the other. They had to to create the necessary software for the Martian rover Arduino development platform to operate. To get them working together and thinking the right way they played the now classic Scrum Tennis. Covid restrictions meant that it wasn’t sensible to have the students all running around the room chasing the inevitable dropped balls. So a more sedate table top version was played.
The students were set tasks that are split into 16 stories. Each one providing a hypothetical monetary award. So the more tasks completed the better the bank team balance. But budgetary restraints are imposed by the costs of testing their code on the rovers. Do they go for more testing or more time developing?
As always unique design solutions were forthcoming despite the fact that these work experiences are run at least three times a year. At the end of the week there was one clear winner with a very healthy budget. But all the teams managed to get through almost all the stories that were possible.
Virtual Work Experience
Rising coronavirus figures has meant that the next live work experience has been switched to a virtual one. Not that this makes the students tasks any easier. In fact working virtually means that they need to develop a team capability much quicker especially as these pupils will be strangers to each other.
If any company would like to present their work and career history to the students then do please get in contact with [email protected]. Getting the students to understand the relevance between learning and real work is an important part of the work experiences.