Team oUFO – showcasing OU engineering talent on a national stage

Team oUFO is a group of engineering undergraduates who are on a mission to prove that distance learners can compete on a level playing field with traditional university students. We are competing in the 2020 IMechE UAS challenge as representatives of The Open University and we are looking for talented, aspiring engineers to join our team. The team are currently raising funds for the project and we would welcome any support that the student body can give us, from sharing our social media activity to aiding our fundraising efforts. Great strides are being made in raising the profile of STEM subjects on a national level and we want to do our part, on behalf of The Open University, to demonstrate what a rewarding subject engineering can be. Team oUFO are supporters of the diversification of the engineering profession and want to use our platform to promote engineering as a profession to young women and children from all backgrounds and social groups.

As students of The Open University, we are all aware of the benefits attached to higher education; however, many students will have been stuck in the conundrum of having the qualification for a new role but not the relevant experience. This raises the question as to how the required experience can be generated if you wish to change career direction completely. Team oUFO presents an opportunity to build your professional development with portfolio evidence, in a design project-based setting to support your career. Opportunities like the IMechE UAS challenge should not only be available to traditional university students and we aim to demonstrate that a team of part-time students can deliver a competitive working product alongside other commitments that are atypical of student life. We hope that in time other students will carry forward the team and enter into future competitions to showcase the depth of talent at the university.

Please check out our website at https://www.teamoufo.co.uk/ for links to our social media pages, fundraising details and more. If you have any queries, please email team.oufo@outlook.com.