A LIVE video link to an astronaut, a giant Scalextric track and a world record-breaking tandem bicycle built in Derby were among the attractions at yesterday's Graduate Engineering and Science Show.
Hundreds of students from all over the country congregated at the Roundhouse where dozens of companies were exhibiting and hoping to recruit the cream of tomorrow's engineering talent.
The Scalextric track was a hit with visitors but the star turn, so to speak, came from Jean-François Clervoy, an astronaut with the European Space Agency and veteran of three NASA missions to space, including one to repair the Hubble space telescope.
Addressing an audience of A-level students, undergraduates and graduates, he said: "You are always capable of doing more and better so set objectives that you are not sure of being able to reach.
"When you are an engineer, you like to understand how things work and how to make things work better by inventing tooling, equipment and machinery that was not possible before."
Another high-profile appearance at the show was the tandem bicycle that became a record-breaker on Guy Martin's Speed TV show last Sunday.
Designed by the team that produced the bike that carried Chris Boardman to gold at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, the lightweight structure was manufactured by Derby-based composites firm EPM: Technology, exhibiting at the event.
EPM managing director Graham Mulholland said: "It just beggars belief what they have done."
Mr Mulholland recruited five graduates at last year's event and was hoping to attract a similar number this time around now that the company has taken up residence at its new factory in Raynesway.
French multi-national engineering concern Assystem brought along a scale model of its Amphibian light aircraft capable of touching down on both land and water.
It is a product of the company's Innovation Factory, a scheme to stimulate new ideas, one that it feels will appeal to graduate engineers.
Kingsley Ogunleye, studying mechanical and marine engineering at Liverpool University, said: "Coming here you can understand the opportunities available and the chance to meet other students from around the country."
University of Derby electronics and electrical engineering student Ehtesham Hussain said: "I have got loads of information to look through and the show has been useful because foreign students have fewer opportunities."
Lancaster University computer science student Xiaochen Zhang said: "The astronaut appearance made it feel more creative and alive.
"The show offers something that you don't get talking to people online or via e-mail.
"And, meeting the people on the graduate schemes, you can see what you might be doing in two or three years' time."
