Excitement was in the air at UTC Reading on Wednesday as Year 10 and Year 12 students went off timetable all day, working on a HUGE challenge – to Design a Data Centre!
The task was set by Digital Realty, a major employer in the digital infrastructure industry, and one of the school’s employer partners.
Working in teams, the students were set a genuine problem: where to site and how to build a new data centre. Data centres are being built all over the world as our reliance on all things digital booms. The data centres (essentially massive servers that house our digital data) are needed to ensure internet-enabled devices such as phones, laptops and smart TVs can operate properly, giving residents the ability to stream TV, films and music, access social media, do their internet banking and many other things besides.
The average household is thought to need about 700GB per month – an increase of 45% in only two years – so there is a constant need to increase capacity in the UK and worldwide. Digital Realty, one of our Digital Futures Programme partners, is a major player in this industry and faces this issue every day.
Supported by several other employers from this industry (LMG, Ark Data Centres, Virtus, Yondr and CNet Training) students spent the day deciding where to site and how to design their data centres.
They used skills and knowledge from their subjects to create a proposal which was later judged by our employer partners in each classroom.
Skills from all areas of learning were called upon, as the teams needed to come up with answers to the following questions:
Where will your data centre be located and why? Geography
What will your building look like? How will you design it? Architecture
What materials will you build it out of? How will it function? Engineering
What infrastructure do you need? What hardware and software is required? Computing
How will you run your Data Centre? What is your business proposal? Business
How much will it cost to fund your data centre? How much power is needed? Maths
What cooling systems can you use? How will you ensure sustainability? Science
How will you write a winning presentation for the employers? English
The winning team from each classroom presented their idea at the end of the day to all partners.
Well done to to the winning team, Apollo Cloud Solution who received Amazon vouchers.
Speaking on the, student team ‘Airflo’ (who were shortlisted as one of the finalists) said: “We feel pretty proud and are really happy that our work managed to make the finals. We worked well together as a team, and I think we got to the finals because of the work we put into our presentation and having all the information we needed in it. We haven’t worked together before and now we’re all friends so that’s been great. This is such a great experience to put on our CVs.”
Student team ‘Jura Limited’: “The challenge was really good fun. The employers commented on how well we estimated the finances for our project, and I feel that’s part of the reason our team made it to the finals. Today has definitely helped us work together as part of a team and hone our leadership skills.”
Billy Marshall from Digital Realty said: “We’ve been really impressed not just by the quality of ideas but the breadth of it. Everyone is coming up with different ideas and putting a lot of thought into it. Meeting the students, and also when UTC Reading students came to our data centre in the summer, it blows you away because you think of how you were at that age and how they are here, it’s not even close competition! It’s great to see the engagement from the students and spreading awareness of what the data centre industry is all about. It’s an opportunity that I wouldn’t have had in school to have all the employers here like today and to have that exposure”.
Why do we do ‘Challenge Days’?
One of the main differences of attending a UTC is the many opportunities our students have to spend time with and work on real-life projects with employers. As well as encouraging teamwork and critical thinking, these challenge days help students:
Improve work-ready skills – Helping students develop and understand the skills and attributes needed to secure a career of choice
Raise Aspirations – Working alongside current and relevant employers with real-world experience, advice and guidance
Prepare for next steps – Supporting students in making informed decisions about your next steps, whether that be education, employment or training
