An Update from Engineering Link

As we write this, our first thoughts are to hope you are safe and well, and that you are coping with what may be a significant amount of time separated from friends and extended family. Paul and I wish you all the best in these difficult times.

Unsurprisingly, given the current social distancing, physical travel restrictions and the need for as many people as possible to work from home, The Engineering Link Group’s flagship Queensland events (the Engineering Link Projects) have necessarily been put on hold for the time being. Current government limits on public gatherings to 2 people for the foreseeable future prevent the ELPs from occurring while such restrictions remain in place.

The EngLink team are hard at work exploring alternative opportunities for our students, sponsors and tertiary partners for when the restrictions are lifted, and we are confident that the workshops we do offer when the time comes will be as valuable for your teachers and students as our traditional events have been over the past 26 years.

We are also currently exploring options for the Spaghetti Bridge Competition to still occur in 2020, with some potential changes to the rules, testing locations and conditions of entry being actively discussed. It is our intention to still offer the teacher Professional Development, with the support of our two main partners – the Department of Transport and Main Roads and Engineers Australia (Queensland Division). Thanks to EA, this PD will be live-streamed, presented by engineers from TMR, with a focus on physics (forces and vectors), mathematics (vectors) and the engineering of bridges and other structures, with a secondary focus of how you can implement the SB competition in whatever format it ends up taking for 2020. Once the program and date for this event is finalised, we will publish it on our website, Facebook page and email our subscribers.

Finally, teachers – if there is anything that we can do to help you in your preparation for delivering classes virtually, please don’t hesitate to ask. We will do our best to assist.

We wish you all the best and look forward to releasing some good news about our events very soon.