Electronic Engineering - When chips meet paper: the exciting world of printable electronics

Suitable for 14-19-year olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom, STEM clubs and at home.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 engineering and design and technology.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• This teaching resource explains the work of Dr Radu Sporea, an electronics engineer at the University of Surrey, UK. He is developing electronics that can be printed onto paper, enabling books to combine both printed and digital content.

• This resource also contains an interview with Radu and offers an insight into careers in electronic engineering. If your students have questions for Radu, they can send them to him online. All they need to do is to go to the article online (see the Futurum link below), scroll down to the end and type in the question(s). Radu will reply!

• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on Radu’s research and challenges them to create their own augmented poster, combining digital and printed content.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

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