King’s College Taunton Welcomes the ACP Roadshow
King’s College in Taunton hosted The Schools’ Aerospace Careers Programme for the first time on 29 April 2026, welcoming 120 students across Years 10 and 12 for a full day exploring aerospace, emerging technologies and career pathways. The day was delivered by Chris Marshall, Mike Stokes and Ogi Damjanovic, with the cohort split between 80 Year 10 students and 40 sixth-formers, all present throughout.
Taunton sits within easy reach of several of the South West’s established aerospace and defence sites, making the region a relevant backdrop for a programme of this kind. The visit gave students at King’s College a closer look at the technologies and career routes connected to that wider industrial landscape.
The morning presentations introduced students to the technological shifts shaping modern aerospace and the wider engineering sector. Chris Marshall opened with an overview of how automation, simulation and increasingly integrated digital systems are changing the way aircraft are designed, built and operated. Ogi Damjanovic followed with a session on immersive design tools, focusing on the role of virtual reality in professional engineering and prototyping environments rather than as a purely creative medium. Mike Stokes closed the morning by walking students through pilot training pathways, while also addressing the wider operational and technical careers that sit alongside the flight deck.
In the afternoon, students moved through the ACP’s breakout rotations. The VR Flight Experience offered a complementary view of cockpit procedures and decision-making. Elsewhere, FPV drone simulators introduced the fundamentals of flight control, and Ogi’s VR design station gave students the chance to build and explore their own three-dimensional environments.
A particular highlight came from Spot, the quadruped robot. A group of Year 10 students settled in for an extended Q&A with Spot during the breakout rotations, pressing the LLM-driven voice system on everything from how it processes questions to what it can and can’t do. The exchange ran far longer than a typical demonstration and offered a genuine sense of how robotics and conversational AI are starting to converge in practical settings, with Boston Dynamics’ Spot platform providing the hardware foundation.
Engagement remained high across both year groups for the duration of the day, with questions returning repeatedly to the practical realities of working in aerospace and how emerging technologies might reshape the roles students are considering.
The ACP would like to thank Clare Lewis, Head of Futures at King’s College, for coordinating the visit and for making the programme’s first appearance at the school a well-organised and productive day.
