This post is in partnership with Highways England
Highways England’s latest public consultation for the A428 had a new twist: amongst the plans and the drawings you could find laptops with Minecraft!
It is Highway England’s latest intiative to get more people involved in the planning process for new major roads. Feedback from their consultations helps shape final road design they create, not only of the road itself, but landscaping, walking routes and cycle paths which are important features for all the communities. So engaging as many people as possible in the early design stages is really important to them.
Highways England, along with BlockBuilders have been running workshops during the consultation events, to give children the opportunity to explore how roads are designed and built, to get them interested in engineering and engage them in the world around them.
I was invited along to the consultation along with Boo Roo and Tigger Too . Kaide aged 13 and Eowyn aged 10 came to the consultation with me to see what they thought!
Both children have been classed as gifted and talented in maths, so an engineering career could become a possibility, and events like these are certainly giving our children the best possibilities of finding what could be their perfect job.
All seven of my children have at some point had a love of Minecraft, for may different reasons. Some have loved the building aspect, adding animals and building a virtual farm, others love the mining aspect. Then there is the social aspect – I have heard many of them chatting with their friends about their latest Minecraft creation, so it is the perfect game to get children involved, as it really does span many age ranges.
If, like mine, your children are Minecraft fans and you didn’t manage to get along to an event before the consultation closed recently, do not fear, as you can explore the world at home (suitable for phone, tablet and windows 10 version of Minecraft) To join the server, open Minecraft and click the play button. Go to the servers tab and click Add server. Then give the server a name of your choice in the server Name field and in the server Address field type : a428.blockbuilders.co.uk Then click Play
I think it’s a great way to get children more involved at the very beginning of the planning stage with any major project. After all, they will be the generation of the future that will be benefitting from new developments. It also gives them a taste of different careers available, and with the recent push on getting more girls into STEM based jobs, this sounds like a great insight for all young people.
It’s important to involve your children in subjects which can affect their futures, and for them to see their parents showing an interest in the local issues, which in turn will make them more inclined to care themselves.
Did you attend any of the consultations and did your children have a go on the Minecraft road building ?
It’s a great way to showcase the diverse roles available within engineering as well as highlighting how they all work together on projects
They look like they are really enjoying it. It’s a great scheme to inspire children
This is great for the young engineers at heart. Good to inspire children.
What a great way to showcase! Minecraft is a hit in our house so I think this would go down super!
My older son Kian loved minecraft and I am sure it led to him choosing Games Design at university
Our local session was based on a bypass that I travel on all the time – I really wanted to go, if only to see what plans they have to make the road better!!