January 2026
CEB Robot Club offers cheap, easy way for departments to join.
The Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology’s (CEB) Robot Club is now opening up to departments across the University, so you can build – and battle – too.
CEB’s Robot Club has developed a ready-made, low-cost model that you can drop straight into your own department. Starter kits, session plans, training materials and a portable arena are all provided, and CEB Robot Club members will support early sessions to get you up and running quickly.
The only cost is the robot build itself – usually £100 to £300 per team. If your department is interested or wants to see how it works in practice, contact Makerspace Manager Josh Easy.
What you will need:
- Technician buy-in (if you have a workshop) and/or three or four willing volunteers to run it.
- A quick thumbs-up from your Head of Department
- Enthusiasm
- A healthy appetite for destroying robots
More information:
Full news article: Robot Club set to expand across University
First-person view: Josh discusses why Robot Club has been such a success
Dedicated website: https://www.ceb.cam.ac.uk/news/robot-club
PDN Teaching Technician Team
The Teaching Technician Team in Physiology (PDN) have been invited to host a stand at the Higher Education Technician Takeover event at the Science Museum, London, on 25–26 June 2026.This fantastic opportunity follows a successful application, after spotting the Viva Engage post in Cam Techs_Community. It will allow the team to highlight the breadth of work that we do and the diverse career pathways available for Technicians within the University of Cambridge.
PDN will also showcase our recently funded outreach project, an idea developed by @Taylor Thomas Lennon and supported through theTSN ROKS Outreach Fund. The team are also excited to be launching our outreach project at the Cambridge Science Festival in March.
The PDN team would also like to thank the Cam Techs Team for championing Technician careers and to @Diogo Martins Gomes and the Outreach Team, for their invaluable support and advice.
This is an excellent example of technical teams working in collaboration with both their Department and externally. It shows the importance of engaging our local communities with technical careers and inspiring the next generation locally and as ambassadors at the Science Museum. It also shows the ability to engage with external funding available to technical staff and inspires you to look at similar options. We are delighted that this is aligned with the Technician Commitment pillars - particularly around Visibility and Recognition - and will raise both our profile and reflect on what technical staff can achieve.
RAS STEPS Event - Department of Engineering
Research technicians from across the UK Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS) community gathered at the Department of Engineering for knowledge exchange, collaboration and hands-on learning as part of the UK RAS STEPS and University of Cambridge Robotics Workshop.
The aim of the workshop was to bring together technicians and researchers to share best practice, showcase innovation and build stronger networks across the robotics community.
This workshop created an invaluable space for knowledge exchange and it highlighted the wide range of robotics areas in which Cambridge is actively collaborating or leading projects across sectors, from agri-food to surgical robotics and human-robot interaction". Co-organiser Narges Khadem Hosseini.
Narges and the Department's work is critical in engaging with national networks. Our team was involved, but mainly as a conduit linking groups and ideas together. For example, we connected the event with Josh who runs the Robot Club at CEB. This again shows the positive effects of linking with external bodies and accessing funding that you can do. Our team is always happy to help develop ideas and use existing contacts, but none of this happens without engaged technical staff on the ground who want to help demonstrate their skills and make connections.
Research Culture Community Exhibition - 29 April
Research Culture can seem like a disconnected idea from technical staff, but it is deeply linked with our work at the University. National statistics suggest technical staff have real issues with bullying, harassment and many other deeply rooted cultural problems. The Research Culture team here is attempting to change this and through their grant scheme, we have applied for projects and are working with other successful applicants focused on interventions aimed at technical staff. This has included the 'Technician Development Fund', a project around fair acknowledgment for technical staff, for kickstarting our very own bespoke training under the 'Technician Development Programme's and supporting CEB Robot Club. It will be great to showcase this work at the Research Culture Community Exhibition and again to champion technical professionals across the University. The need for this has been clear - previously technical staff may have been forgotten and missing from wider Initiatives. Whilst it may still feel like you are being overlooked, technical staff are now part of high level conversations and projects where they never were before.
Repair Café
Our second Repair Café was held in October at the School of Clinical Medicine. It was another great success with all sorts of items repaired and advice given. With extra capacity from walk-ins, the repairers managed >100% capacity for looking at items. The next one will be at a central location on Saturday March 28 to tie in with the Cambridge Festival. Why did the CamTechs team take these on? The simple answer is we had technicians who volunteer for these in their own communities and simply asked the question: 'wouldn't it be great to do these here?' The admin isn't easy and navigating the University was not simple but the team looked at this and realised that these are a way to demonstrate technical skills, problem-solving and know-how. They are also a way of both raising the profile in the local community and acting as a non-obvious outreach vehicle. Additionally they are a fantastic way of developing technical and other skills by being involved when you may not have previously. We do however need more technicians to be involved to help fix stuff. You don't have to be an expert. Repair slots are only 45 minutes and often it is enough to simply have a look and a go at repairing. The next one is a particularly hard ask as it is a Saturday, but equally there are fewer worries over a time commitment in the working day. If you would like to be a repairer at this event or subsequent ones, please fill out a form on our new SharePoint site. We are also looking to train organisers for local versions.
University of Cambridge Repair Cafe
UCL/Oxford/Cambridge technician workshops project
Last year was the first year of us working with UCL and Oxford to provide new training and networking options for our technical staff. The reason for this existing is that we are all large employers of technical staff and face common challenges. We wanted to link technical professionals who may have quite unique jobs here with colleagues across other Institutes and to also create a 'third space' - there are many instances we have found our own staff connecting better and discovering opportunities at events external to here (despite in some cases providing a similar item they weren't aware of). We had three workshops over the year focusing on Outreach, Grant Writing and Career Development. the last one was in-person and included a trip to the Science Museum to explore the Technicians Gallery and the potential for further involvement there-as now seen by PDN. This year we will look to provide more topical events but also see how we can work together longer-term to develop resources and influence the sector. As ever, we encourage you to look out for these events but also reach out to us and make suggestions.
Form the Future
Form the Future is a local organisation dedicated to helping young people discover career pathways, including technical roles and apprenticeships. We’re proud to support their outreach work and encourage technicians across the University to get involved. Whether it’s sharing your career story, demonstrating technical skills, or volunteering at events, your input can make a real difference in inspiring future technicians.
If you’d like to take part or learn more, visit their website Form the Future or contact the CamTechs team by email at technicians@admin.cam.ac.uk
Technician Development Programme 2026
Our Technician Development Programme is now in the second year and has moved to in-house delivery. The three courses are focused on Career Development and Management options currently as these were identified as looking at transferable skills technical staff may not realise they have and to begin to reflect on their next steps. Additionally, it is clear that management training is patchy and we wanted to create a better consistency across the University and provide support for those who wanted it. The next sessions are coming up in February and March so please book a slot if you are interested: Book events | Technician Development.
We are looking to expand this programme as time goes on and will add new content as the year progresses. We are particularly interested in developing practical and/or hands-on non traditional courses. The Continuous Improvement (Lean) sessions (date tba) partially do this and we are looking to deliver Lego Serious Play sessions too. Additionally we will continue the Repair Cafe initiative and work to expand robot Club. These are all new ways of engaging with you and we hope you are interested.
Royal Society of Chemistry travel grant
For RSC members in a technical role, travel grants of up to £500 are available. Current round closes on February 9.
Technician Travel and Training Grant