PUPILS from Malmesbury School spent the day in London yesterday, learning about what it takes to be an engineer.

A total of 20 pupils took part in an exclusive engineering workshop set up by Dyson at the business’s new Oxford Street ‘Demo’ retail space in the capital.

The workshop was run by the James Dyson Foundation, Dyson’s charitable arm, and it challenged pupils to design a product that solves a problem that they have encountered at home or in the classroom.

They got into teams to sketch out their ideas and got to make a prototype using parts from Dyson machines.

Gabrielle Peers-Dent, head of science at Malmesbury School, said it was a “brilliant opportunity” for school pupils.

“Not only do they get an insight into engineering careers, but they get to be in the inspirational surroundings of the Dyson store and learn about Dyson technology,” she said.

“It’s a fantastic way for them to join the dots and understand that engineers can work on exciting, high tech products.”

Orlando Luscombe, 13, from Malmesbury School, said he enjoyed the workshop.

“We got to come up with our own ideas about how to solve problems, it was really fun,” he said.

The workshop was part of an ongoing relationship between the engineering titan and Malmesbury School.

Dyson have their British headquarters in Malmesbury and award a university scholarship of up to £36,000 to one pupil from the school every year, as well as providing financial support for the students’ DT project work.

The workshops are another way of encouraging young people into engineering.

Britain is currently only producing 66,000 engineering graduates a year currently, an annual shortfall of 38,000.

Danya Walker, a James Dyson Foundation executive, said: “The James Dyson Foundation does a variety of work to inspire and support young, local people in becoming engineers.

“We were very pleased that students from Malmesbury School could join our inaugural Oxford Street workshop and learn about what an exciting, and creative, career engineering really is.”