Gibbons Work Experience Programme Proves a Success

It’s that time of year when we open our doors to local students from schools in the area and this time around, we welcomed two students in Ella and Freddie. Both students came from the Plume Academy in Maldon, situated just 10 miles from the Gibbons Offices. Both Ella and Freddie had expressed a keen interest in engineering, with Ella leaning more towards Chemical Engineering and Freddie preferring the route of an Electrical Engineer.

Spending 10 days in the various Gibbons workshops offered both students the chance to experience a broad range of working environments, and they even took a road trip to one of our other sites to make some mechanical checks on road tunnel jet fans. Most of their time was spent in our rewinds and repairs, contracts and agricultural workshops.

Ella and Freddie both had the opportunity to learn about the intricate processes of rewinding electric motors with our experienced workshop manager Kev. Freddie got stuck into a burnt-out motor, stripping out old coils and cleaning up the stator, while Ella spent a whole day learning how to insert new coils and how to lace them neatly together. Workshop manager, Kev was impressed with this year’s students as they showed great initiative and a good work ethic.

Our youngest electrical engineer, Charlie, hosted Ella and Freddie on alternate days in the contracts workshop and showed them how to wire and program agricultural panels. Both Ella and Freddie completed their own control panels with Charlie’s assistance and it’s safe to say both students took great pride in their work.

The rest of their time was spent helping in the agricultural department testing and packing grain cooling fans, preparing grain pedestals and helping to organise orders for farmers. The summer months are the busiest for our agricultural department, so the extra help was really appreciated amongst the other Gibbons team members.

Gibbons Managing Director, Matthew Gibbons had this to say about Ella and Freddie: Both Ella and Freddie showed a real interest in everything that they got involved with and I was especially impressed with their positive attitude towards work. We had them doing all sorts of jobs, from rewinding motors to cleaning agricultural pipe but they both seemed to really enjoy their time here with us. We hope that they both got something out of the experience and that it sets them up well for a career in engineering.

From everyone at Gibbons Engineering Group, we’d like to thank Ella and Freddie for their time spent with us and we wish them all the best for the future. If you’d like to know more about working with us as a work experience student, please contact amy@gibbonsgroup.co.uk.