A group of 24 Year 10 GCSE students studying Electronic Products and Science visited Invensys’ Crawley division as part of our curriculum enhancement programme, accompanied by Mr Turner (Head of Electronics) and Ms Skene (Head of KS4 Science).<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> Invensys is a global technology company that works in partnership with a broad range of industrial sectors to produce software, systems and equipment allowing the monitoring, control and automation of products and processes. They have projects all around the world aiming to maximise safety, efficiency, reliability and ease of use. Examples of Invensys products are:·         safety systems for use on oil rigs & oil refineries and in nuclear plants·         equipment to allow the efficient industrial mixing of paint·         rail monitoring products showing where individual trains are on a network and how fast they are travelling·         3D ‘virtual’ training environments for use in industrial safety training and accident management. The pupils began their visit by meeting members of the Invensys staff, including 2 students, only a few years older than themselves who were spending a year with the company on work experience placements. They were also given a presentation by a senior engineer discussing his career to date and the exciting experiences and opportunities for travel that a career in engineering has given him. The pupils then took part in a workshop to learn about the use of electronic logic gates; components used to make ‘decisions’ on the state of an output, i.e. on or off, based upon the condition of a series of inputs. After a brief introduction to the components the pupils worked on a series of progressively more difficult problems, setting switches and analogue input levels to trigger a warning siren and flashing light. At the end of the activity the pupils learnt that the equipment they had been using was the same as that used to test oil rig safety systems and cost around £50,000! The pupils thoroughly enjoyed their visit and many said they would have liked to have stayed longer. Their behaviour was exemplary. We were made very welcome by Invensys and I hope that some of our pupils will be inspired to follow a career in engineering. Students commented: ‘I really enjoyed the trip; it was fun and very informative. Invensys is a very interesting place and the people there are very nice. The trip gave me a good idea of what engineering can do’ Jack Lacey, Y10.‘The trip was incredibly enjoyable and helped broaden my horizons for the future. It gave me an idea of what being an engineer really is’ - Michael Carey, Y10‘It was very enjoyable and I learnt a lot’ - Liam Carse, Y10‘I thought the Invensys trip was fun! I really enjoyed the logic gates activity’ – Matt Card, Y10