Craft Your Future!

The Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) has recently launched a new initiative to introduce 12-14 year olds to a career in construction, and it looks like a lot of fun. Countless Civil Engineering and Groundworks firms in North Wales are alike others throughout the country. They're looking to the future and to the next wave of talented individuals to take the industry to the next generation.

More and more is being done to promote the future in British construction. The industry is typically accused of being too traditional and completely resistant to change. The need to attract a new generation of construction professionals is becoming increasingly urgent and simply can't be understated - as more than 400,000 British construction workers are set to retire between 2018 and 2023. The cards have been drawn - Without the nurture of new talent, Britain will face a severe shortage of construction professionals.

Craft Your Future is an initiative comprising of a preliminary four freely available lessons which can be downloaded by teachers and assessed via the Minecraft Educational Platform. The lessons are set in fictional Newtown, a specially created and completely private Minecraft city. Students will encounter a variety of simulated problems that reflect real struggles within the construction industry, and will learn how to design, plan, collaborate and build solutions for future sustainable cities.

The students are intended to work in teams of 3 to 4, and will collaborate within this team on maintenance, construction, restoration, new builds and refurbishment, with each of the four preliminary lessons lasting 2-6 hours. It's very much a case of learning while doing, and exercises include real life scenarios like restoring a model of Battersea Power Station.

Minecraft barely needs explaining, and it is well known that the undoubtedly popular game, like Lego’s robotics program- has proved capable of multiple purpose since it's creation by Mojang and later acquisition by Microsoft. Added is the fact that in 2016, There are well over 70 million people playing the game.  That’s 70 million individuals having a glimpse into simulated construction challenges that textbooks just can’t provide.