Ever wondered what it’s like to race an experimental car? Pushing the car to its limits to win? That was the dream of this week’s writer, our very own driver, Alan Jamieson.

As someone who has grown up watching F1 I have always had an ambition to race a car and get an insight into the feeling drivers have when stepping into the cockpit. The rush from being a part of such an engineering project, pushing it to its limit, working with a team of great minds with the core goal of winning has always been something I wanted to be a part of. Being a member of CUER, especially today, has allowed me to fulfil this ambition.

With the car operational, today we embarked on completing our first vehicle test to see just how far we had come over the past year. Rewinding back to the beginning of the year, I was instantly keen to join CUER. The sheer ambition to build a car – not just to race at WSC 2013, but to win – quickly attracted my attention. Having driven the car in our first test today, I can confirm CUER will be doing much more than making up the numbers come October.

Standing in front of me was almost a year’s worth of hard work and sacrifice, my number one goal: don’t break it! Tentatively, I squeezed into the modest-sized cockpit, which had evolved from the cardboard box that I was initially measured in. Briefed on how to operate the car, I nervously began to press on the accelerator. Those nerves were short lived. Taking off, increasing speed, this 4.5 metre car I was driving felt as nimble as a go-kart. Ignoring my initial conservative attitude going into the day, with the permission of the team, I pushed up to 50 kph in my first run before pulling into base to see the looks of satisfaction and excitement on the faces of the team. The work had paid off and we were now beginning to see it. Energized from witnessing what we had achieved thus far come to life, we began to crack on. Pushing on from the initial ambitions of the day, we began to take note on how every corner of the car was performing during our tests and how to improve it. Working as a team we accumulated an invaluable amount of data that we believe will go a long way in getting our project to its optimal level. On a personal level I was allowed to push the car more each time I took off, gaining more and more confidence which can only be a benefit when our tests are transformed into a race in Australia. The faster I went the more I became convinced that I was driving what is becoming a winning car.

With more confidence in what we had built, you’ll be glad to know our testing was carried out in a professional, efficient and successful manner. Beginning the day with a list of questions, the team finished with the answers and more.

As for me, I would like to thank my team mates for giving me that brief insight into what my F1 heroes experienced.

Alan Jamieson

Driver & Aerodynamics Team

A very productive morning saw us demonstrate that modifications to our steering system had improved our turning circle on the previous week.

Another major update from the previous week was the addition of the door to the car. With the driver sat in the car, it was easy to verify that the new World Solar Challenge visibility regulations are easily met by the new car, with the driver able to see much more than previously expected. This higher performance over our calculations is due to our assumption that the driver’s head would not move, where as in reality it does! The addition of the door (despite lack of canopy and windscreen) also represented a decrease in the aerodynamic drag of the vehicle!

For our next test in two weeks, we hope to have close to the full aerodynamic shell on the car. This will be really exciting as we will get the first chance to verify our aerodynamic analysis, which will be really race critical.

During the afternoon, an electrical fault was picked up by the telemetry and the remainder of the day was set about diagnosing the causes of it. The capturing of the fault by our software prevented any damage to any components on the car. Experiencing such faults now in testing demonstrates why the testing process for this project is so critical. For victory, reliability is key and the only way to be reliable is to test extensively. The Electrical Team are now hard at work fixing this problem on the car in time for the next test, learning from and undesrtanding potential problems and failures before they occur; by race time we will have a very reliable system.

Finally the picture below shows our Electrical Team downloading telemetry data from the car’s on board logger at the end of the day.

Peter Mildon

Chief Engineer- Mechanical and Manufacturing

Part 1

Part 2

So this is the next instalment in a series of blog posts about women in engineering, previously you may have read accounts from both PhD student Lucy Fielding and also fellow Newnhamite and first year engineer, Sarah Barrington. Both raised many interesting points about being a woman in the engineering world and I simply want to share with you my journey into engineering.

Despite engineering having always been around me (many family members being various types of engineers including my father), I wasn’t really aware of what it actually was until I had decided to do it. Choosing a career path can be an incredibly daunting process and since I had never really thought about what I wanted to do with my life it was hard to know where to start. However, I did know that I had always enjoyed subjects such as maths, physics and design and it only took a little research to find that engineering was an interesting option which combined everything I enjoy. What’s great is that the idea that some of the subjects I was studying might be seen as ‘male subjects’ never even entered my mind as a possibility and therefore couldn’t influence my decision at all. In fact, what I struggled with more was that sitting down with my maths teacher to work out exactly how many extra maths modules I could cram into my free time destroyed any hope of me ever being ‘cool’!

The girls in my chemistry class demonstrating that women can do science too

When my design technology teacher found out that I might be interested in engineering he encouraged me to apply for an Arkwright Scholarship. These are awards which are aimed at students hoping to take maths, physics and design at A Level with the possibility of going on to study subjects such as engineering at university. Being awarded one of these scholarships meant that I was sponsored by a large civil engineering company who were happy to give me advice, encouragement and even work experience opportunities throughout my final years at school. What I found most useful about the scholarship however was the application process, it involved spending the day at Southampton University where the interviews were held. The interview encouraged me to really think about what I wanted to do and why but what I found most useful was that throughout the day we were given a tour of the engineering department and also completed an engineering related challenge, a great insight into studying the subject at university. The whole experience made me realise that although there are aspects within the curriculum, getting a real insight into both studying engineering at university and also engineering as a career is something that you only get if you really go out and look for it. Yes, there is a lot of information on the internet and in books but personally I wanted to actually experience it, I achieved this through work placements and summer taster courses. This was the point when I realised that what everyone says is true, there really aren’t that many women interested in engineering.

Work placements and summer courses are a great way to get a proper insight into engineering

I did a couple of work placements with a local structural engineering company and in an office of maybe 15 engineers only one was a woman. Personally this wasn’t a problem for me and didn’t discourage me at all, but I can understand that for some people it can be intimidating. And it’s not just in industry where I’ve noticed the lack of women, I attended three summer courses designed to give A level students an insight into studying engineering at university. The first one was a Smallpeice course and I was pleased to find that the number of girls was relatively high, the second course however was a different story. It was a course run by Exscitec and we were separated into three groups, these were the groups we spent the whole week with and I was the only girl in my group. Coming from an all-girls secondary school it was obviously a completely different environment to be in and definitely took some getting used to, however it was a brilliant week and I didn’t want to leave at the end. I had so much fun and learnt a lot too, it was probably the point where I realised that engineering was definitely what I wanted to do in the future. In contrast, the third course I attended was a Headstart course run by EDT, this one was for women only and was aimed at encouraging female students interested in engineering. There were plenty of us on that course and it showed that we are out there, even if there are a less of us compared to the guys.

After experiencing it for themselves on a Headstart course, most of these girls are now studying engineering at university

So that’s basically what’s brought me here today and hopefully many more students in the future, both male and female, will be able to experience what I have and be inspired to pursue a career in engineering. I came to Cambridge expecting around 10-15% females but in fact 25% of my year group are women which shows the numbers are increasing. Personally I’ve never been worried about being a minority, I haven’t been in any situations where I’ve felt intimidated or discriminated against and I don’t feel like I have more to prove than anyone else. In fact at times I feel like so many people are working hard on getting more women into engineering that I’ve had an advantage over my male counterparts. I think it is important that we make sure that female role models are out there and girls are aware of engineering from a young age but from my point of view, the things that are being done at the moment to encourage girls to study STEM subjects are effective and we will soon get to the point where the only reason a girl isn’t studying a subject like engineering is because it’s not something she’s interested in.

With the build program progressing such that the mechanical side of the chassis and suspension and the electrical systems down stream of the batter are complete, we basically have a super lightweight electric vehicle on our hands at the moment.

A huge thank you to Millbrook for offering the team use of their facilities. This resource is going to be invaluable for our ability to mount a serious attempt at winning the World Solar Challenge. It is one thing to come up with a good concept, another to build and run it reliably.

Famous for some of Top Gear’s more joyous challenges (images of flaming trucks come to mind) and the flipping Bond Car in Casino Royale, this test track is also used by the automotive industry to try out their new cars and concepts. CUER is proud to add our vehicle to the huge list of automotive innovation that has passed over this tarmac before us.

Unfortunately we cannot show you any pictures from the test, as photography is forbidden within the confines of the track without a camera minder, however, I can tell you we did a total of 50km of running, including turning circle and brake tests, before slowly ramping the speed up on the mile straight.

Here is a GPS trace of where the car went during part of the test day.

This test day was the first of many planned to not only put the car though its paces, but also to ensure we understand how it preforms in different conditions and tune any variables to give the optimum performance.

We look forward to next weekend when this program will continue. With some up updates being brought to the car during the week, we expect to see significant performance gains, primarily from the addition of the car’s door which should improve the aerodynamic performance.

Peter Mildon

CUER Chief Engineer- Mechanical and Manufacturing

The sun rose without a cloud in the sky, perfect day for a test drive

Today we marked a huge milestone in our bid to win the World Solar Challenge! It’s been a long time coming, and a lot of hard work – but we did it. Today was the day we drove our car under her own power for the first time.

On a gloriously sunny afternoon we rolled our car out of the workshop for the first time. At our testing location near Cambridge we were eager for the first rolling test. A testing team of ten of us came together to be a part of the precious moment.

It’s one thing to design a car on a piece of paper, but something completely different to actually go and build one. After a few months of contending with unexpected delays, exams and negotiations across language barriers (Ich habe ein bisschen Deutsch gelernt), we finally had a fully functioning car!

At 5ft 11, Stephen was the smallest person so was our nominated driver

It was also a chance to test out driver ergonomics for real. Unfortunately, none of our carefully selected (tiny) drivers were available for this test and all of us were about 6 foot tall! With Stephen “The Stig” Pendrigh being the smallest person present at 5ft 11 he was nominated the first to drive. The electrical minds were poring over the data coming from our telemetry, the mechanical minds were testing our systems whilst Stephen went to get his helmet. Then we watched him squeeze into the cockpit. “Chocks away, let’s roll.”

There was a pall of silence as we all gazed hopefully at Daphne. This was really it. Then we heard it, the silence broken by the soft, gentle hum of her motor. Our eyes confirmed what our ears had heard, she was off! Gently rolling under her own power! Like a proud parent observing their baby toddle for the first time, the feeling was nothing but elation! After a brief test of the brakes, Stephen began to motor! Doug staring at his laptop was calling out the data to us as we chased Stephen down the straight “10kph…. 20kph…. 30kph”.  30kph and cruising elegantly along.

When he pulled over, the joy was obvious all over his and everyone’s faces. We’d done it!

Professor Tony Purnell, who was with us, was keen to have a go next. We spun the car around, Stephen hopped out and Tony tried to squeeze into the cockpit. This car really was designed for small people, he had to get rid of his shoes just so he could fit. After a briefing on the driver controls, he wasted no time in putting the car through it’s paces. Accelerating well, turning left and right to test out the handling. We really had to run fast to keep up with him!

Today’s achievement is just a step. The Usain Bolts of this world first learn to toddle before they can walk, then walk before they can sprint, then sprint before they become champions. As a leader, I am proud of what we have been able to achieve as a team and look forward to the next phase as we transition into testing; from toddling to walking.

For those on the team, today was quite important, so this is what they had to say.

“She handles quite nicely, easy to drive and very nimble like a go-kart. Not at all like a car that is 4.5 meters long. We even limited the power for the first test and she still drove well…” - Tony, CUER Advisory Board

“I’ve been worrying about this day for a while. Like many engineering projects, delays in the supply chain have been pushing this day further back. It was such a relief to see her roll and roll well. I got to drive too, she handles great…” - Yang, Technical Director

“We got some really neat data from the telemetry. It was awesome that everything worked so well first time! This doesn’t normally happen…” - Doug, Head of Software

“We have passed a huge milestone with our project today. Seeing the car working lays to rest a lot of the worries that any designer has about the implementation of their work…” -
Peter, Chief Engineer

Part 1

Whenever my friends or colleagues ask me, so what exactly is engineering? Even I struggle to answer.

Yes, the Oxford Dictionary defines it as ‘the branch of science and technology concerned with the design, building, and use of engines, machines, and structures’, but what does this tell us of the massive impact engineers have on pretty much everything in our everyday lives? The hard work and meticulous calculation they implement in order to better society as a whole?

So this might explain why I didn’t grow up expecting to be an Engineer- I was never really sure what I’d be letting myself in for. I’m not from a particularly scientific background, although my dad has been a fantastic engineer all his working life. Therefore to me, engineering was just something that dads did. And to an extent, I guess I was right- there is no denying the subject has always been and remains male dominated.  We’ve seen the statistics thanks to Lucy Fielding’s previous blog post, but the message I want to convey with my post is that times are changing.

Times of change: contrasts in generation and gender became apparent on a recent visit to the IMechE.

I’m 19 years old, have been in mixed schools all my life but now currently attend the famously all-girls Newnham College here at Cambridge, which has previously educated many ‘female scientists’ such as Rosalind Franklin. Admittedly, as soon as we fled the safe comforts of GCSE’s and began choosing subjects for ourselves, the female science students at sixth form college whittled down to a mere 5 or less in each of my classes. The fact of the matter is, this never really bothered me. The angle I took was relatively similar to Lucy’s- I didn’t want to kick up a fuss and tried to use any stigma as motivation. I was happy to quietly get along with my work then enjoy the hilarity that ensued when I wiped the floor with all the guys in my class on results day.

So I don’t think the problem of having so few women in science and engineering lies with how females are viewed by men, i.e. a ‘sexist issue’, if you like.  To be honest, sexism hasn’t been a massive problem for me personally throughout my time in Science, although I’m fully aware I don’t speak for everyone on this. Thankfully, I’ve never felt like I’ve been held back or undervalued purely because of my gender.  Of course there is always the odd female orientated joke here and there, but these do often tend to be from older generations, who may have worked and studied in times when it might have been genuinely abnormal to see a woman in the engineering department.

‘Dont worry lads, I’ve got this’: no one doubts my physical capabilities as a woman when it comes to planing 

But as for the fresh, bright, new male engineers whom I attend my classes and lectures with? Well, they don’t seem to share this attitude at all. Of course, the heavy male bias isn’t perfect, but I do truly believe things are changing for the better. A retired engineer recently told me that there was only 1 girl in the entire Cambridge engineering department 50 years ago- now we have over a hundred per year. Lucy also tells us how it was mid-way through second year until she received tuition at any level from a female- but for me, during my first year I’ve already had 3 women lecturers and 2 women supervisors. At the all female Antenna Live event, I only received 2 comments regarding the fact we were all women- none of the other hundreds of visitors even noticed. And inevitably, being at Newnham also means all my supervisions are with other girls, so from the start I’ve always felt part of a strong female community within the subject.

Overjoyed: the fact that only 2 people commented on our all-female presence at Antenna Live clearly delights a local interviewer

And of course, we cannot forget CUER’s impressive recruitment efforts. To have a student-based racing team consisting of approximately one third female members is a colossal achievement.

So, if it’s not sexism scaring girls off, then what is going wrong? In my opinion, the problem is more that women aren’t sure what they’re getting into. And by that, I mean it’s the young girls themselves who think engineering is just for men- which if course is completely wrong! But what can we do to educate young females about what engineering ACTUALLY is? Simple, theoretically speaking. 1) Increase awareness from a young age. And 2) role models, something which Lucy has already picked up on.

Girls should be growing up knowing exactly how fantastic and useful engineering can be and just what its capable of. We need to increase awareness in schools of WHY we learn this seemingly abstract maths and physics and relate it directly to everyday life; and through showing how vital it really is we can eliminate the ridiculous stereotypes that young people hold. As for role models, having seen some of the capabilities of those in and around the Uni science departments, I’m pretty certain we’ll be seeing some new science stars emerging in the near future. But in the mean time, why not strive to become a role model for others? There’s a gap in the market for scientifically influential women that WE could be filling.

Get excited: me showcasing the sheer coolness of CUER’s engineering masterpiece 

So in contrast to Lucy’s experiences of feeling almost singled out at times, I’ve thankfully been made to feel like one of many- and even when this wasn’t statistically the case, I relished the stigma and used it for motivation. Of course, I appreciate that I cannot speak for everyone in this situation. There will still be women who refrain from speaking up in supervisions for fear of looking inferior to their male colleagues, who feel alone in their studying. But I honestly think that soon this fear will be no more. The number of women involved in Science is improving, and so is society’s perception of them.

Thankfully, my experience as a whole has been somewhat positive. My time in Engineering has been minimal, but I sincerely hope the improvements continue for the foreseeable future.

Sarah Barrington

Mechanical Team

As the exams are now over and our 4^th year projects are coming to a close (my first draft was just handed to my supervisor today) we thought it was time for an update.

So what has been going on:

Roll bar manufacture:

Marshall Aerospace kindly agreed to bend the tube for our roll bars at a meeting on a cold and blustery morning back in the beginning of March. Material was ordered and by the end of April we got the call to say the roll bars were complete. I took an afternoon off revision to cycle out to Cambridge Airport to collect them.

Alex Robinson- our Systems Designer and general hero with a lathe then finished the assembly of the front roll bar, which had had to be manufactured in two parts due to machining constraints. He also manufactured some inserts for the carbon cross beam to be attached.

Lucy Osborne and Kai Yu Tan- two of the mechanical team were set the task of finding a company to manufacture the roll bar mounts. Lucy found a company called Burwell Engineering who were able to manufacture the parts for us within our time scale. Here is what she had to say on how she found them:

“There are plenty of companies out there which would be capable of machining our parts, however, it was important we find a reliable company we could trust and rely on. By contacting companies in the Cambridge area and explaining what we are doing and why we are doing it we were able to find a company which was interested in the project and keen to get involved with us as well as being able to machine good quality parts quickly, keeping to our tight schedule!”

The CAD files were sent and a couple of weeks later the parts were ready to collect. Burwell Engineering is a small machining company that are equipped with a CNC mill, as well as lathes and welding equipment.

http://www.burwellengineering.com/

I had an interesting morning talking through our project with them, as well as discussing some of the similar technical challenges we had experienced working on the manufacturing side of things. Here are a few photos they gave us of the process behind the part manufacture:

Start with a block of metal:

Bore out the central hole:

Mill away the bulk of excess material:

Mill the detailed surface of the part:

With the parts in hand, I returned to Cambridge and met Andrew Zhao and Kirsty Wynne who helped me fit the roll bars to the recently finished chassis.

Wheel Fitting:

Alex Robinson used the Cambridge University Engineering Department workshops as a useful revision break in the lead up to exams, spending an hour each day manufacturing small parts that were required to fit the wheels and suspension to the car.

Our SKF bearings were fitted to our wheels:

Two of the grads on our team, Henry Cathcart and Oliver Armitage (both WSC 2011 veterans) were set the task of fitting the tyres to our wheels. Their experience showing when they delivered the inflated tires within a few hours of the meeting setting them to work!

With the wheels as a guide, Thomas Roddick and Kirsty Wynne then located where the they would pass though the outer skin of the car and cut slots for them.

With all the suspension components on the car turning up from Cambridge Precision- one of CUER’s biggest sponsors, the job of mounting the wheels to the car could begin. Harry Parker and Stephen Pendrigh helped Alex Robinson to locate the mounting holes for the rear suspension.

Driver Controls:

Three of our team’s drivers turned up to sit in the car for the first time this week. This allowed the brake pedal to be fitted to the chassis.

Graeham Douglas manufactured his steering wheel mount design.

In preparation for testing this week, the electrical team joined the mechanical team in the workshop over the last few weeks and it has been really great to see the electrical side of things seamlessly merge into the mechanics of the car. The coming together of two great groups of people under the same roof has really helped to cement the team spirit and drive us on to achieve great things in the coming months.

Peter Mildon

CUER Chief Engineer- Mechanical and Manufacturing

The Honda Dream – winner of the 1996 WSC

This year there were some significant changes to the regulations governing the most competitive class of solar vehicles, the Challenger class. The primary change was a move to four wheels, an important one given the recent domination of three-wheeled designs. Not since 1996 when the Honda Dream took the top spot has a team won this class with a four-wheeled vehicle. Secondly, the regulations governing the driver’s head space and visibility have been tightened. The new quantitative restrictions bring them up to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s transport guidelines and the Australian Government National Code of Practice respectively.

New head space and visibility requirements for the WSC 2013

At CUER we welcome these new regulations on two accounts. Firstly, the changes have opened up the competition to new innovative designs. In recent years competitive vehicles have converged on a similar design. Aside from having three wheels, the driver was located to the rear of the vehicle and cars had what could loosely be described as a ‘table-top’ overall form. The changes in visibility requirements demand a radical new approach, either by moving the driver forward (which causes significant challeneges aerodynamically) or completely changing the shape. Enter Daphne! Small, lightweight and with a totally different ‘tear drop’ form, she is a break from our past race vehicles and her origins owe a lot to the work done at WSC.

A render of our 2013 race vehicle

Secondly, as an eco racing team, we welcome changes to the race that require our solar cars to have greater real-world applicability, whilst maintaining its competitive spirit. The change in seating position and wheel configuration mean that the car is effectively a lightweight electric vehicle. For our technical team the challenge now resembles much more closely that which a commercial car manufacturer would have; albeit for a 1-person vehicle. In other WSC race classes, space for a passenger is also required, bringing those vehicle even closer to everyday cars. We’re positive about the changes that have been made, and look forward to an exciting year ahead! 140 days to go!

Apparently, I’m a ‘woman engineer’.

I’ve always found this phrasing a little unwieldy, and it’s starting to crop up more and more: ‘woman lawyer’, ‘woman doctor’ (not to be confused with ‘gynaecologist’), ‘woman scientist’. I’m not sure when people started specifying the genders of their educated professionals like this. After all, we don’t talk about a ‘man teacher’, ‘man secretary’, or ‘man nurse’. The closest we get is ‘male nurse’, which at least employs an adjective. Although I’m not sure that makes it any better.

Nevertheless – I am, indeed, an engineer who is a woman. I didn’t always intend to be. I was six when Jurassic Park came out, and this was when I first learned you could do dinosaurs as a job. Of course, while growing up, I also toyed with becoming a vet, or an astrophysicist, or an astronaut, or all three, before returning again to ‘vertebrate paleontologist’. But whatever the fad of the moment, it was inconceivable that I wouldn’t become a scientist of some kind. It literally never crossed my mind to do otherwise.

At my all-girls school I got nothing but encouragement to do as much science and maths as I could, and I do think that the all-girls environment made a difference. Recent studies have shown that girls are two and a half times more likely to study physics at A-level if they attend a single-sex school. In co-ed schools, girls are turned off science for fear it isn’t feminine, or because of discouragement from their teachers in favour of male pupils. I was lucky not to have to deal with these pressures.

On the other hand, this meant that when I moved to university, I jumped from an educational environment that was almost 100% female to one that was only 27% female. Suddenly, I was conscious of being a woman, and what message that might send about my scientific ability. Around this time, several high-profile academics had put forward the suggestion that the gender gap in science and engineering was predominantly due to a lack of innate ability in women, rather than discrimination, and the debate was raging.

Imagine starting a science degree at Cambridge, with that controversy fresh in your mind. I began to ask myself: who else thinks this is true? My lecturers? My supervisors? My classmates? The work here is incredibly difficult: it’s easy to lose confidence in the face of that. I found that I would no longer ask questions when I was the only woman in my supervisions, because I didn’t want to lend weight to the idea that women were bad at engineering. I didn’t want to be the example that people pointed to in order to say “this is why women can’t be engineers.”

However, that extra pressure also meant that I worked harder than I might otherwise have done, and I came top of my college after the first-year exams. After that, I knew I could be a good engineer: I had the paper to prove it.

It didn’t quite work out that way at first. A lot of people tried to explain away my results. “You just worked harder because you’re a woman. The men work less and do almost as well, which means they’re actually better.” “I’m glad you’ve demonstrated that you don’t actually have to be a good engineer to do well in exams” “Are you the one who gets her clever boyfriend to do all the work for her?” ”You’re basically just a man, aren’t you?” The latter comment an all-too-frequent expression of the idea that ‘only men are good at engineering, therefore you must secretly be one’. I didn’t help matters by taking this as a compliment. It’s really not.

There were other things. Seemingly small things. Sexist jokes intended to provoke a reaction; being told that women could never be good engineers because everything in the last century had been invented by men; that one memorable day when one of the students in our Structural Design Project started speculating what kind of underwear all the women were wearing…

These microaggressions accumulated to create an environment that, on occasion, could be uncomfortable or even hostile to work in. Did it affect my work? I don’t think so – but I’m just one person. Wider studies do show that stereotype threat is real: it’s possible for people to conform to stereotypes of themselves when they are exposed to them. They show that it affects not just young students but long-standing professional scientists. They show that sexist or “macho” environments may contribute to women turning away from pursuing careers in STEM subjects, because it’s just unpleasant for them.

Now I am in the position to start considering a career in science or engineering, it has come as a surprise to discover that my first-year concerns were not particularly unreasonable. In 2012, research showed that scientific faculty members consistently perceived female job applicants as less competent, less qualified and less hireable than their identical male counterparts, and offered the women lower starting salaries and less mentoring. It seems as though, unconsciously, we do believe that women are inherently worse at science. Harvard University’s Implicit Association Test does a good job at uncovering these biases. Women still struggle to reach top research positions, or even to earn the same wages as men. That some (not all!) of this pay gap is due to taking time out to have children is not an excuse, but a condemnation of  how little childcare support can be offered in academia, and how pernicious is the widespread assumption that women should be the ones to sacrifice a career for a family. Nature addresses many of these problems in its recent issue devoted to women in science.

The good news is, the engineering industry is starting to pay attention. Since I’ve only worked in academia, I can’t speak from personal experience here, but I hear promising things. Many companies and organisations have realised that it’s bad for business if of 50% of your potential workforce is choosing to go and do other things. They have begun to work to promote STEM careers to women and girls, offering sponsorship, networking and other career incentives – actively looking to increase the proportion of women in their workforce. This sends a message: you will be welcome here. Our Platinum sponsors, Jaguar Land Rover and Schlumberger, are doing excellent work in this area and I think it’s a great start.

Don’t make the mistake that any of the problems are somehow unique to Cambridge, though. These are national, or even global, issues. The Engineering Department is actually one of the better places for female undergraduates to study. We have one of the highest proportions of women in the country at undergraduate level. Cambridge as a university goes out of its way not to discriminate against its applicants on the basis of sex (or class, or race, or sexuality, or disability). It was at Cambridge where I was first exposed to other female role models in my field. To be fair, it was mid-way through my second year before I had a woman teaching me at any level – but she was a fantastic lecturer and I can still remember how nice it was to see someone like me up on that stage, for once. Out of the 30+ lecturers I had during my undergraduate course, only four were women, so the novelty never went away.

Source: xkcd

Cambridge was where I learned about great female scientists for the first time: Barbara McClintock, Jane Goodall, Rosalind Franklin, Lise Meitner, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Emmy Noether, Ada Lovelace, Hedy Lamarr. Cambridge was where I met great female scientists. My friend Kim, who consistently came in the top 10 of her entire year in Chemistry. My supervisor Michelle, who seemed to be drowning in awards and fellowship offers. Professor Athene Donald, physicist and Gender Equalities Champion. Professor Dame Ann Dowling, head of the Engineering Department and recently rated one of the top 100 most powerful women in the UK. And – of course – the women in CUER.

This, you see, is how we improve the state of women in STEM subjects. With examples. With role models. With sheer numbers. Women should be seen doing science and engineering and maths and programming. They should be seen doing it on TV, on the radio, in universities, in schools, in the street and anywhere else we can think of. It needs to be normal. This is what the Antenna Live festival at the Science Museum did so well. It was not marketed as a ‘women in engineering’ event. It was marketed as an ‘engineering’ event. So hundreds of little girls got the opportunity to see women like Helen Sharman, Steph Mckenzie, Leena Gade, Teena Gade, the Viridity Girls’ Racing Team and, yes, us, showcasing science and engineering without any kind of special fanfare to give the impression that this was unusual. Hundreds of little girls could have seen themselves in us, just for a moment, could have felt excited or intrigued or thrilled while – and this is important - not feeling like the odd one out.

You don’t need to paint science pink and put it in high heels to make it a ‘girl thing’. It just needs to stop being seen as a ‘guy thing’.

The more women there are in STEM areas, the less any individual woman will feel as though she’s a representative for her entire gender, with the added pressure that brings. Give us the chance to be wrong, to make mistakes, without it being blamed on the fact that we’re women. Give us the chance to do well, to be outstanding, to enjoy science and engineering, without having to hear how surprising it is.

Source: xkcd

Oh, and one last thing: please, please, stop unnecessarily referring to us as ‘women engineers’ or ‘female scientists’. That only contributes to the problem. It shouldn’t be notable that we’re women. It shouldn’t be notable that we’re engineers. It should be completely unremarkable.

I am not a ‘woman engineer’. I am an engineer. Hear me roar.

We have positions available to suit a wide variety of interests and commitment levels. Come along to one of our meetings.

Either on Wednesday at 1pm or Friday at 5pm to talk to current members of the team. You can come to either or both.

We look forward to seeing you there.

For more information email: joinus@cuer.co.uk

or check out recruitment page http://www.cuer.co.uk/join-us-for-2013-2014/