The on-line game Engineering Mastermind aims to improve the knowledge base of engineering students. It has been available through Think Up for a number of years but this year, for the first time, we introduced a competition element.
We did this by offering prizes to individuals who won the greatest number of badges within the fixed period of 1 October 2014 – 30 April 2015 and with the least number of attempts. Prizes were offered in each category of Construction Management, Basic Materials Properties, Water Engineering, Structural Engineering and Engineering History. Each winner was awarded a £50 book token.
We also offered the overall individual winner the opportunity to interview for a summer work placement with our sister company Expedition Engineering. And we are delighted to announce that Will Evans from the University of Coventry was interviewed alongside other high calibre undergraduates and was successful in securing a placement.
In addition, we offered a prize for the top institution so that schools, colleges and universities had an incentive to encourage their students to play. We are delighted that the site has attracted players from the University of Greenwich, UCL, Imperial, Bath University, Salford, Loughborough, Coventry and the University of Texas!
The winner of the Top Institution prize was the University of Bath. Their prize was a free half-day Creative Design workshop for up to 50 participants and we are currently making arrangements for us to deliver this course in the autumn semester.
We hope that by incentivising students and others to play Engineering Mastermind we will increase traffic through the site and raise interest in the content itself.
You do not need to be a sponsor to offer a prize which might include a work experience placement or a visit to site or indeed you might feel able to offer an annual subscription to a free and relevant magazine for example. And so if you would like to be a sponsor or donate a prize then please contact us on info@thinkup.org