Thomas Faries

A week long work experience with Mercedes' F1 team where I independently traveled from Coventry to Brackley everyday. Got a one on one session with company higher-ups, Technical Directors Rob Marshall and James Allison and gained valuable real world experience.

Day 1:

I was able to attend the Saudi Arabian race debrief and learned valuable and interesting information not widely available to the public about the race and Mercedes performance. Shadowed a Simulations engineer as well as a systems engineer and learned about their job roles.

Day 2:

Did several activities including identifying parts from the car by working together with my partner and narrowing it down until we could make a good guess, we then analysed its material and how it was made. I also shadowed an R&D Technician and was able to get up close to the F1 car and helped build a part to hold a read wing in place during testing.

Day 3:

Spent the day in the material sciences laboratory analyzing the specific heat capacity of different fluids and materials such as resin and carbon fibre as well as getting the opportunity to shadow an electron microscope technician, witnessing how it works and taking some amazing pictures of pollen at 1.2 million times zoom. Also attended a company Q&A with the drivers George Russell and Kimi Antonelli and worked up the courage to ask them a question in front of 1300 people while sat right at the front.

Day 4:

Attended a one on one session with Technical Directors of Mercedes F1, Rob Marshal and James Allison where they were very interested in my engineering projects, as well as this I was able to ask them valuable questions like how their education effected their career. I also shadowed the R&D Technician again and got to watch a test of the DRS system and power steering.

A valuable week long work experience in the West midlands police where I spent days with:

- CMPG (Central Motorway Police Group)

Spent the day at their HQ learning about what they do and how, including attending the days morning briefing and visiting the CCTV HQ for West Midlands motorways.

- Firearms

Attended a training session where I was given a gun loaded with blank shots and took part in several mock situations to help train the firearms team.

- Intelligence & Force Priorities (Major Crime Unit)

Shadowed several officers and took part in logging seized cannabis and cocaine into evidence along with learning how the police plan a raid on a property.

- Neighbourhood Policing Team

Shadowed an officer on her daily route, watched and learned how she investigates and resolves conflicts along with how she took down evidence after a house robbery.

- Airport Policing Team

Spent the day with an officer who works at Birmingham Airport and learned about his day-to-day as well as visiting the airport fire department and listening to how they deal with fires at the airport.