Engineer for a Day
Miss C Burnham, Curriculum Leader: Design and Technology, writes:
Last Friday I went to MBDA in Stevenage with six Year 8 girls to take part in a new event, “Engineer for a Day”. The event was predominantly female-focused, with the idea of giving girls an opportunity to have a go at being an engineer for day and to work alongside the female MBDA engineers.
The girls were given lots of information about MBDA as a company; what they do, what it is like to work for them and the different routes into engineering as a career. During lunch time they were able to talk to female engineers, all at different stages in their careers, some who were on apprenticeships and others who had worked for many years in various different roles.
The main focus of the day was taking part in a real life engineering challenge where the girls had to design, build and test a structure which could transport tomatoes for the farmers in Nepal, where living on the mountainside and getting them to the market involves a long, dangerous walk down the mountain side and over a river, at the end of which the tomatoes may well be a bit squashed! The girls did a fantastic job at building and presenting their rope pulley system to transport the tomatoes, none of which were squashed when they got to the bottom!
The day was excellent! It was great for the girls to have the freedom to make their own design decisions and build their own design, whilst having the great support from MBDA engineers, who worked with them for the whole day.
There was no competitive element to the day but well done to Libby Gilbank, Zainab Umarah, Chloe Emerick, Holly Clayton, Chloe Kunjasic and Emma Hudson for being awarded a CREST Discovery award and being fantastic engineers!