By Sigra Sharma Bedtime Stories for Very Young Engineers will be returning on the 17th and 18th June at the Great Exhibition Road Festival, South Kensington, London. Find us in the Family Zone to hear more amazing stories by engineers, about engineering, for very young engineers. To get us in the mood for a good bedtime story, Sigra Sharma has written a new blog post, entitled When Engineers Turn into Bards. Join us at the Great Exhibition Road Festival. Tickets are free. During last fall season  The week of mid-term break A shout went out  As fun was at stake. Schools were finall ..read more

by Kate Castle A ‘fix’ of engineers gather on the stairs On Sunday 15 May, storytelling engineers gathered in London from near and far to celebrate and share the wonderful stories created as part of this project. To date, we are still undecided what you call a group of engineers. Current front runners are an ‘innovation’ or a ‘fix’. However, to be able to meet in real life the group which has been hard at work, mostly virtually, to produce all these new stories was an absolute delight. With engineers from a variety of backgrounds, it did make for an interesting line-up, ready to put in to pra ..read more

By Kat Smith Engineers often go through a process when coming up with new ideas. We generate loads and loads of ideas - good ones, bad ones, BIG ones, small ones. Then we try them out - this can be in small batches or as small models, or even just by asking people and seeing which ones they like. If they work, we try them out on a bigger scale… And if they don’t, we go back and change things based on what we’ve learnt. Once we’ve gone through this a few times, learnt what works and what doesn’t we launch the product, or build the bridge, or send the telescope into space. We iterate, and this ..read more

By Sigra Sharma Knock knock ‘Who’s there?’ ‘It’s Anna and Kimberly We’ll keep things on track firmly’ ]Knock knock ‘Who’s there?’ ‘It’s Steve and Elise Camera, sound & action, on with ease’ Knock knock ‘Who’s there? ‘It’s Kat and the puppets With Gloopful of buckets’ Knock knock ‘Who’s there?’ ‘It’s Katie and Pear We’ll save the polar bears’ Knock knock ‘Who’s there?’ ‘It’s Sarah with her wand Think magic, engineering and beyond’ Knock knock ‘Who’s there?’ 'It's Matt, Wizard and Ed By logic one should be led' Knock knock ‘Who’s there?’ ‘It’s Claire and the Poo Without us what would you do ..read more

By Helen Sheldon All of the brilliant engineers involved with this project have been working hard, drafting and re-drafting stories over the last few months, and Anna has been working even harder reading them all and editing/commenting on them. And so, the time has finally come to record!  For me, the run up to recording my bedtime stories was a slightly rocky one. Just over a week before the big day, both of my children tested positive for Covid. This meant I was thrown back into the world of trying to supervise and home-school two young girls who were feeling a bit under the weather as ..read more

By Matt Calveley As engineers, we’re aware of the basic properties that create the foundation of a design or structure. Doesn't matter the exact type of engineering, some things are just necessary. Without fundamental aspects in place, a system or component simply won’t work and is likely to fail. This might require strength calculations or considering how certain forces are applied to a structure. By understanding these fundamental aspects we can avoid failure or we can use these aspects to test as part of a root cause analysis - in order to make improvements for the future. As part of the s ..read more

By Chloe Agg Each peach pear plum, I spy something fun. Something fun through the zoom screen, I spy the Stories team. Bedtime Stories learning skills, I spy thrills and spills. Thrills and spills mapped on a chart, I spy Stinky’s Fart Stinky lives down in the sewer, I spy our first reviewer First reviewer Anna Ploszajski, I spy a smart dungaree. Dungarees teaching worlds, I spy our drafts unfurled. Drafts in Derby at Rolls-Royce, I spy a silly voice. Silly voices make you believe, I spy a Cross Steve. Cross Steve shows us lighting, I spy engineers writing. Engineers are trying hard, I’m not ..read more

By Sigra Sharma Have you ever wanted to escape Into a world of different times? Where anyone could talk And engineers spoke in rhymes. Maybe in that world Someone would build tunnels for poo, And someone would clean the space junk Cos they needed a clean world too. A seal would come to love her whiskers, A tortoise would come out of its shell, An ogre would save a bridge And a bike would have a dingaling bell. Chickens and dogs would build things, A chocolate factory would be clever, Kids and plants would work in a lab So no one would go hungry ever. A family would fix a fuse box, A deaf nurs ..read more

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By Helen Sheldon So far in this ever-deepening dive into bedtime storytelling (who knew there was so much to think about in a 5-minute bedtime story?), we’ve looked at structure, and at using the voice to read aloud. This week, we headed into worlds and characters. When looking at the worlds our stories might be set in, there was a range of discussions about what the rules of that world might be. Do the laws of physics even apply (a video call full of Engineers gasp…)!?! And our characters; what do they want, what do they need, is that the same thing? How do they change throughout the course ..read more