Visit boom! and you will enjoy a fast-moving theatre style stage show. This exciting performance is compèred by Robert Llewellyn of Scrap Heap Challenge and Red Dwarf fame. It will be an amazing 70 minute journey through the world of engineering featuring global and regional companies and culminating in a performance by Honda's humanoid robot, ASIMO.

There's a whole world under the sea and it's not just home to sea life. There's miles of pipes lines for oil and gas, telephone and internet cables, oil drilling sites, tunnels and even underwater hotels. It's engineers that work out how to put these things under the sea and then install and build them. As a subsea engineer, you could find yourself working deep under the sea. The North East is a major hub for subsea companies and this is an important industry sector in the region.

Software engineering is the new kid on the engineering block. We've been building bridges for hundreds of years, but things like the i-phone are pretty new. Software engineers design, implement and maintain software systems. They might be involved in the design and testing of computer games or software to control technical hardware and equipment. We've a lot of digital companies in this region from games designers to Sage who produce accountancy software packages for businesses.

The North East, particularly Teesside, is a centre for chemical and process industries. This includes pharmaceutical, biotechnology, polymer and rubber and petrochemical companies. Chemical engineers work in the chemical industry to convert basic raw materials into a variety of products. It is the branch of engineering concerned with the design, construction, and operation of machines and plants that perform chemical reactions to solve practical problems or make useful products. Like all engineers, chemical engineers use math, physics, and economics to solve technical problems.

When people think about engineering, they often think about cars and engines. Whilst that is a big part of engineering, it isn't the only part. At boom! you will see how many other careers there are that don't involve getting your hands dirty. But if you're into cars, you will not be disappointed by boom! And one of the world's biggest car manufacturers and a big regional company, Nissan, will be showing how they are pushing the boundaries of automotive engineering.

The world's energy resources are running out and we need alternatives. Engineers working in the renewable energy sector are concentrating on harnessing the power of wind, waves, biomass crops and the sun to find new sources of power for future generations. In the North East we have lots of companies working at the cutting edge of renewables - Blyth Offshore Wind Farm, when it opened ten years ago, had the two biggest turbines in the world. See how else engineers are harnessing green energy at boom!

Without civil engineers and the construction industry, we wouldn't have bridges, roads, railways, tunnels or major buildings. We wouldn't have the Tyne Bridge, the Transporter Bridge, the Wearmouth Bridge. We wouldn't have Wembley Stadium or the world's tallest building. One of the most exciting civil engineering projects in the UK is even taking place in the North East, the second Tyne Tunnel.

Engineering is everywhere we look. Roads, computers, phones, buildings. Engineers solve problems on land, under the sea and in space. The military uses engineering all the time from creating new airplanes, to bridge building, from tanks to sophisticated communications equipment. One global company that has a huge factory in the North East and that is involved in defence employs lots of different engineers. You can see BAE Systems at boom!

Robots are machines that can do jobs, sometimes by themselves or sometimes controlled by a person. Some robots are invaluable in carrying out roles that are dangerous for humans like bomb disposal robots or robotic space arms. Some robots seem like they are just for fun like RuBot, the robot that does the Rubik's Cube and ASIMO, Honda's humanoid robot. You will be able to see both these robots at boom! But underneath these fun robots lies serious robotic engineering technology that, in the future, could play important roles in society.