Laser 2000 STEM Outreach Programme

In 2019, Laser 2000 teamed up with Ormiston Academies Trust to sponsor STEMFest. This is a festival where groups of students work together on Social Action projects that would benefit their community, using STEM technologies or principles. The groups would plan, implement, and evaluate their project before giving a presentation in front of a judging panel. The initial uptake was incredible, and it was so popular that we have continued to sponsor this festival ever since.

Examples of projects have been:

• Sustainable fashion – some students designed the concept for an app which showed which fashion stores had the lowest carbon footprint and were the most environmentally friendly.
• The growing food shortage – one group researched the easiest and most cost-efficient foods that could be home grown as well as designing a “starter pack” that could enable consumers to start growing some of their own food.
• Homelessness – a group designed a blanket that was windproof, waterproof, warm, and available at a low cost.

Laser 2000 not only sponsor this festival but also form part of the judging panel, as well as acting as mentors for groups throughout their project.

• Providing Lego robot kits for Bushfield Academy’s out of school STEM club. Students had to build the robots and programme them to follow a course.
• Sponsoring Ormiston Academies Trust’s raspberry PI project. Students build a computer from scratch using a raspberry PI, and from the sensor accessories design and programme an instrument based on different scenarios.  
• Show and tell – we visit a science class with some of our most interesting demo equipment, engage with the students on how it works, why it is needed, and relate science to real life. Some of the equipment we have shown includes fibre splicers and fibre test and measurement equipment, showing why this is important for your fibre broadband. COVID-19 put a dampener on in person show and tell, but we will be back soon to do more of this. We have fun equipment such as microscopes, motorised stages, LED light engines etc.
• Q&A panel – we have also visited schools as group from internal sales to directors of the company, and answered questions on how we got into the career we did, why we chose STEM subjects, and life at university etc.

Laser 2000 Literary Bursary

In March 2022 a group from Laser 2000 ran the Cambridge half marathon. The purpose of this was to raise money to start the Laser 2000 Literary Bursary. We know first-hand the high cost of academic textbooks at university, and for a first-time student from any background it can be a large expense, for a STEM student coming from a challenging community it can be even more so.

Our aim is that the money raised will act as a book bursary to support one graduating student from OAT that has a place at university on a STEM subject,and help to cover the cost of their textbooks in their first year.