Women in Engineering Conference at BAE Systems
On Thursday 8th October a group of six Year 12 girls, accompanied by Miss Drinkwater, visited BAE Systems, a global defence, aerospace and security company in London. They spent the whole day there, meeting girls from other schools, completing activities and learning a great deal about engineering within a company. Here, Year 12's Kate tells us more.
When we arrived we were split into groups with people from different schools. This was initially a little daunting but very quickly everyone in my group got to know each other. It was easy to talk to people as we all had a shared interest in engineering.
The day was set up like a recruitment day: we had to complete two different activities, one verbal and one practical. In the verbal exercise we had to choose a supplier for our product, debating whether to pick, for example, the cheapest or the most ethical. This was made more challenging by the wild cards that were thrown in to cause problems every time we thought we had made a decision.
The practical task was to create a lift with a counterweight to lift a bag of sweets 8cm from the ground, using pencils, rulers, string, tape and a pack of cards. This was great fun, although very stressful as our structure kept toppling over! However we were spurred on by the promise that we could eat all the sweets we managed to lift up, and we succeeded just before the time ran out! Throughout the day there were also several talks about engineering, highlighting both routes into it as a career and the role of an engineer at BAE Systems specifically. There were also lots of stalls showing different areas of the work BAE is doing, with interactive activities such as building motors out of magnets, batteries and plastic cups.
The day was thoroughly enjoyable, with lots of engaging activities and it was great to be participating with such a like-minded and friendly group of people. Many thanks to BAE Systems and Miss Drinkwater.