Well done for taking part in the VR Engineering Experience. You stepped into the shoes of an engineer at the Royal Mint, helped build a town powered by wind and sun, and met a real engineer.
There is one last thing to do to earn your Girlguiding VR Engineering Experience County Badge: answer five questions about green engineering jobs. Everything you need is on this page.
How to complete your VR Engineering Experience County Badge
Answer the five questions below and bring your answers to your next meeting.
- Read the five questions.
- Find your answers. The tips and links on this page will help, and you can ask a grown-up to search with you.
- Write your answers down. A sentence or two for each question is plenty.
- Take your answers to your next unit meeting. Your leader will give you your badge.
What you discovered
Engineers work in teams to solve problems that help people and the planet. Here is what you saw them doing.
In VR at the Royal Mint
Recycling: engineers recover precious metals, like gold, from old circuit boards so they can be used again.
Solar power: a solar farm turns sunlight into electricity.
Wind power: the wind turbines, Delilah and Bryn, turn moving air into electricity.
Battery storage: giant batteries save electricity for when the wind drops or the sun goes in.
New from old: Royal Mint technicians and jewellery makers turn that recovered gold into beautiful jewellery.
Did you spot the cheeky penguin?
In your mini town
- You made and decorated your own house, and gave it solar panels on the roof and batteries to store their clean energy.
- You built a solar kit and made clean energy from light.
- You powered your whole town from one wind turbine. More clean energy! That is how one wind farm can power lots of homes.
- You kept your town powered when there was no wind and no sun, using energy stored in a battery. That is why engineers look for ways to store electricity for later.
- You worked as a team, just like real engineers and town planners, to plan and design your town.
From your engineer
- You heard what a real engineer does, what a typical day is like, how they got their job, and what they love about it!
Engineers pop up everywhere!
Green engineering is not only wind turbines and solar panels. You will find engineers helping the planet in some surprising places.
- Music: at Coldplay concerts, fans help power the show by jumping on special dance floors and pedalling bikes.
- Film and TV: engineers at Sky built a quiet power unit for film sets. All it gives off is water and heat.
- Rocks: in Cornwall, engineers drilled more than 5km down to reach hot rocks, and now use the heat to make electricity.
- Animals: the bumps on a humpback whale’s flipper gave engineers the idea for a better wind turbine blade.
- Health: a mechanical engineer made an artificial leg out of recycled plastic bottles.
- Sport: one football club mows its pitch with a solar-powered robot.
- Computer games: the makers of the game Alba: A Wildlife Adventure planted a million trees, one for every copy.
- Space: a satellite built in Stevenage is mapping the world’s forests from space.
Your five questions
Question 1
Name 3 different green engineering jobs.
A green job is one that helps look after our planet. Green engineers work in clean energy, in space and in protecting our environment. Here are some ideas to get you started. You can choose any three, or find your own.
Clean energy
- Wind turbine technician: keeps wind turbines working, on land and at sea.
- Renewable energy engineer: finds new and better ways to make electricity from wind and sun.
- Heat pump engineer: fits heating that keeps homes warm without burning gas or oil.
- Battery storage engineer: designs the giant batteries that save electricity for later.
Space
- Satellite engineer: designs and builds satellites that watch Earth’s weather, ice, forests and oceans.
- Space sustainability engineer: works out how to clear up old satellites and space junk.
Protecting our environment
- Environmental engineer: cleans up pollution in our air, water and soil.
- Materials engineer: finds ways to reuse materials, like recovering gold from old electronics.
- Water engineer: makes sure we have clean water and helps protect homes from floods.
Want more ideas? Try Explore green careers or Meet real engineers.
Question 2
Pick one of those jobs and, in one sentence, explain how it helps our environment and/or communities.
Think about who and what that job helps. What would we miss if nobody did it?
You could start your sentence like this: “A … helps our environment by …”
Here is an example: “A wind turbine technician helps our environment by keeping turbines working, so we can make electricity without burning coal or gas.”
Question 3
What subjects at school would help you get into that job?
Every engineer uses maths and science. These are essential! Other subjects will support and inspire you in your engineering career too:
- Design and technology if you like designing and making things.
- Computing if you like coding and working with data.
- Geography if your job is about weather, land, oceans or the environment.
- Art for drawing, designing and creating. Engineers sketch their ideas before they build them.
- English for writing and explaining clearly. Engineers write reports and share their ideas.
- Drama for speaking up with confidence. Engineers explain their ideas to lots of people.
- Languages because engineers work with teams all around the world.
- Music for sound, rhythm and patterns. Sound engineers help make concerts greener.
- PE for teamwork, and for learning how the body moves. That helps engineers who design sports kit or artificial limbs.
- History for learning how inventions changed the world, and how to do things better next time.
- Food technology if you want to help grow, make and package food in ways that are kinder to the planet.
In fact, almost every subject can help. Engineers need all sorts of skills!
To check your job, search for it on the National Careers Service and look for “How to become”.
Question 4
What are the three different ways to become an engineer?
There is no single right way to become an engineer. Here are the three main ones:
- An apprenticeship. You have a real job with a company. You learn while you work, and you get paid. Find out about apprenticeships.
- A university degree. You study engineering at university, usually after A levels, T Levels or a college course. Find out about university.
- A degree apprenticeship. A mix of both. You work for a company and study for a degree at the same time. You earn a wage and your employer pays for the degree. Find out about degree apprenticeships.
Some people take a college course or T Level at 16 first. That can lead on to any of the three.
Find out more at Become an engineer.
Question 5
Girlguiding helps you build skills like confidence, teamwork, problem-solving, communication, creativity, resilience, and leadership. Pick 3 of these words and describe how each one would be useful in the green engineering job you chose.
Think back to building your mini town. When did you work as a team? When did you have to solve a problem? Engineers do the same things every day.
Not sure about a word? Here is what each one means:
- Confidence: believing in yourself and having a go, even when something is new.
- Teamwork: working well with other people to get a job done.
- Problem-solving: working out what has gone wrong and finding a way to fix it.
- Communication: explaining your ideas clearly and listening to other people’s.
- Creativity: coming up with new ideas and different ways of doing things.
- Resilience: keeping going when something goes wrong.
- Leadership: helping a team work together and bringing out the best in everyone.
You could start each sentence like this: “… would be useful because …”
More places to explore
These free websites are good places to find your answers.
- This is Engineering: Meet real engineers. See a day in the life of real engineers.
- This is Engineering: Become an engineer. School subjects and the different routes into engineering.
- National Careers Service: Explore green careers. Green jobs and how each one helps the environment.
- Green Careers Week. A week all about green jobs, starting on 2nd November 2026, with a quiz and a virtual careers fair.
- National Space Academy: Find Your Space. Short videos from people who work in space, including engineers.
- BBC Bitesize Careers. Videos and stories about lots of different jobs.
- Green Careers Hub. Job profiles and career stories. Best for Rangers and older Guides.
For parents, carers and leaders
Girls who took part in the VR Engineering Experience are working towards the Girlguiding VR Engineering Experience County Badge. The five questions above are the final step.
Younger girls may need help reading the questions and searching the websites. Short answers are fine. What matters is that they have explored the jobs and thought about how they could get there.
The VR Engineering Experience is run by Spacefund and funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering. It was filmed with real engineers at the Royal Mint. Questions? Email info@spacefund.co.uk.
With thanks to
