Girls from three Canterbury primary schools - Pilgrims Way School, St Peter's Methodist and The Canterbury Primary School - visited the University of Kent on 23 June for an event in conjunction with International Women in Engineering Day.
The WiRED event, (Women in Research, Engineering and Design), was hosted by the School of Engineering and Digital Arts (EDA), and saw 21 girls from Year 6 participating in a number of engineering and digital technology-focussed sessions.
These sessions included producing special visual effects in EDA’s green screen studio, learning about Radio Frequency Identification tags, and making tiny toothbrush robots called Bristlebots that use a toothbrush head, a motor and a battery.
There was also an interactive ‘Meet the Scientists’ challenge to learn about famous female scientists and the chance to chat with ‘Edison’, a robot that is able to respond to voice commands and perform various activities, such as push-ups (pictured above).
The aim of the event is to raise awareness of the impact women have had in the fields of electronics and engineering throughout history and encourage more young girls to consider these areas for future study.
The University of Kent has a strong track recording of producing female graduates in these arenas. Recently 2009 graduate Victoria Roots, who achieved a 1st class BEng (Hons) degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering and now works for BAE Systems, was included in the Top 50 Women in Engineering 2017, awarded by The Telegraph and the Women’s Engineering Society.