Royal Mail is celebrating some of the marvels of British engineering from the last 50 years with a new set of ten stamps available from today. They feature three past winners of the Royal Academy of Engineering MacRobert Award, which marks its 50th anniversary this year.

From the smallest of computers, the Raspberry Pi, to the three-way catalytic converter developed by Johnson Matthey, and Oxford Instruments’ superconducting magnets that enable MRI scanning, the UK has a long and proud history of engineering. All three innovations are former MacRobert Award winners. The stamps also feature the Falkirk Wheel, the world’s only rotating boat lift, and Crossrail’s monumental tunnel boring project.

Completing the main six-stamp set is the synthetic bone-graft material developed at Queen Mary University of London by Dr Karin Hing, who won the Academy’s Silver Medal in 2011 for her work.

Dr Dame Sue Ion DBE FREng FRS, chair of judges for the Royal Academy of Engineering MacRobert Award, said: “The UK is a global engineering powerhouse with many world firsts developed here that have both benefitted our economy and helped to transform people’s lives for the better. This wonderful new set of Royal Mail stamps perfectly encapsulates the technical and commercial achievements made by British engineers over the last 50 years…”

Philip Parker of Royal Mail added: “British innovation in engineering is world renowned. This stamp issue proudly celebrates the projects and inventions which showcase this, as well as demonstrating the extraordinary range of disciplines that British engineers excel in.”