Creative upcycling

Veka UK Group has been helping students at a local sixth form college get hands on with creative engineering.

Mark Jones and Ben Kenny from Veka UK Group’s maintenance department got involved with the Thomas Whitham Sixth Form Stem project, which saw students recycle bicycles into a range of creative new items.

Renovate innovate and create were the aims of the four-day programme where students were tasked with dismantling a bicycle and documenting the process before re-building it back to working order.

They then dismantle again and worked with the Veka UK Group team for a day to design and build some imaginative new products.

Veka UK Group maintenance manager Mark Jones said: “Participants had to work with a number of different materials seeing how they can be utilised and joined together. They learned about a variety of mechanisms, the value of recycling and re-using, as well as having to work closely together in teams. They were also encouraged to think outside the box to come up with creative new functions for things.

“By the end of the day, we had a coffee table, lap table, some jewellery, a mobile work bench, a clock and a couple of sculptural art pieces. We were able to repurpose a really high percentage of the bikes’ fixtures and fittings which was a good exercise in sustainability, and the whole project allowed pupils to really get to grips with engineering and design concepts. Not to mention the fact that it was also just good fun.”