Case study

City College Norwich

As part of the FE Pilot Programme T-level mechatronics students used Shoestring solutions to build understanding of industrial problems and the Internet of Things

During the 2025–2026 academic year, City College Norwich integrated the Shoestring for FE Pilot Programme into its curriculum for a cohort of second-year T Level Mechatronics students. Acting as a real-world, employer-led project, this hands-on initiative allowed students to build low-cost power monitoring devices, attach them to college air compressors, and identify key energy inefficiencies. The project not only delivered concrete cost-saving and sustainability recommendations but also significantly enhanced student engagement, technical acumen, and career readiness.

The skills challenge

City College Norwich is a leading provider of further, higher, and adult education located in the heart of Norwich, England. With nearly 1,000 Level 3 students, it stands as one of the primary hubs for T Level technical qualifications in Norfolk. For senior leaders and tutors, a constant priority is finding meaningful, employer-led projects that bring abstract technical curricula to life while supporting the college’s broader strategic goals, such as sustainability and Net Zero objectives.

The T Level Mechatronics course demands rigorous, hands-on application of engineering principles. The college recognized an innovative opportunity to address both educational requirements and operational costs by auditing the energy consumption of its own campus infrastructure. Specifically, heavy-duty air compressors operating across various departments were suspected of being energy-heavy, but the college lacked an accessible, low-cost method to capture frequent, real-time energy data. The Shoestring for FE Pilot offered the perfect mechanism: a practical, budget-friendly digitalization framework where a cohort of seven students could take complete ownership of an energy-monitoring mission.

The solution

Coordinated by James Grant, Industry and Work Placement Officer, the pilot was structured across four distinct sessions running from October 2025 to February 2026. This deliberate timeline allowed the project to seamlessly align with the students’ existing technical units and coursework.

Session 1: Staff Engagement: The first step involved presenting the Shoestring for FE framework to teachers, tutors, and work placement officers, establishing the educational value and operational logistics of the project.

Session 2: Introduction to Low-Cost Digitalization: Students were introduced to the concepts of Digital Shoestring, exploring the growing importance of low-cost digitalization within the manufacturing and engineering sectors.

Session 3: The Build and Deployment: In a highly engaging hands-on session, Shoestring staff trained the students to build, configure, and install the low-cost power monitoring solutions. Students assembled the hardware themselves, coding the power-monitoring devices and deploying them onto air compressors across three different campus sites: the vehicle department, carpentry workshops, and the Digi-Tech building.

Session 4: Data Analysis and Presentation: After several weeks of continuous background logging, the students gathered the accumulated data files, analyzed the findings, and presented their formal efficiency recommendations to college stakeholders.

James Grant highlighted the impact of the practical work:

“The whole Shoestring process was thoroughly engaging for our students from start to finish. A particular highlight was the session in which the students had the chance to build and code the power-monitoring devices themselves.”

The outcomes

The data captured by the student-built devices revealed that the college’s air compressors were consuming a baseline of 20,544 kWh of energy per year, translating to an annual cost of £5,140.80 and carbon emissions of 4,113.60 kg of CO₂.

By analyzing these datasets, the students demonstrated that achieving a 20% to 35% improvement in compressor efficiency would yield substantial benefits:

Financial Savings: Annual cost reductions between £1,028 and £1,799.
Environmental Impact: Eliminating up to 1.44 tonnes of CO₂ emissions annually, making a tangible contribution to the college’s Net Zero targets.

Beyond the raw numbers, the pedagogical outcomes for the learners were profoundly positive:

Skill Reinforcement: The project directly reinforced key technical engineering concepts and provided applied learning that supported their core coursework and understanding of engineering systems.
Analytical Growth: Students experienced substantial development in their data collection, processing, and interpretation skills, becoming comfortable dealing with real-world data.
Soft Skills and Employability: Confidence, problem-solving, ownership, and communication skills were greatly enhanced through the final presentations. Furthermore, because students could feature this real-world digitalization project on their resumes, it served as a powerful motivator that positively impacted course attendance.
Inclusivity: The highly practical, hands-on nature of the project provided clear contextual learning that improved engagement and accessibility for disadvantaged students.

Alongside minor site-access hurdles, a key IT challenge emerged: the massive datasets generated overwhelmed standard student laptops, limiting analysis depth. Tutors recommended providing more robust IT resources or higher-specification laptops to significantly enhance data processing in future projects.

What are the next steps?

City College Norwich fully intends to reuse and adapt this project structure for future cohorts. To build upon these lessons, future editions will incorporate more robust upfront planning around site access and establish clearer coordination with technical facility staff from day one.

Given the correct IT resources, there is strong interest in expanding the Shoestring programme into other departments across the college. Furthermore, the participating tutor noted that provided there is an opportunity for targeted staff training and resource allocation, college faculty feel entirely confident delivering these digital sessions independently in the future, allowing the project to become a sustainable, self-sufficient fixture of the curriculum.

As James Grant advises other further education institutions considering the programme:

“Ensure appropriate IT resources are in place and make full use of the employer-led context to maintain engagement and relevance for learners.”

Case study summary: City College Norwich

Solution setup:

The challenge:

Seeking a practical, curriculum-aligned method to engage students in real-world engineering systems while identifying cost and carbon savings to support Net Zero objectives..

Solution:

A low-cost digitalization project spanning four sessions where students built, coded, and deployed Shoestring power monitoring solutions onto college air compressors across three campus buildings.

Outcomes:

Identified potential annual savings between £1,028 and £1,799 and up to 1.44 tonnes of CO₂.
Strengthened students’ data literacy, practical electronics skills, and soft skills (communication, problem-solving, and ownership).
Boosted student attendance and provided an excellent resume-building experience.
Improved curriculum accessibility and engagement for disadvantaged learners.
Highlighted the need for robust IT hardware and early communication with technical staff to manage large datasets and equipment access smoothly.

Next steps:

Adapting the framework for future student cohorts, expanding Shoestring to other college departments, optimizing IT/laptop resources, and training internal staff for independent project delivery.