Monday 20th July: Bel Valves On Monday, we visited Bel Valves in Newcastle; they are a part of British Engines, and specialise in making valves. Unlike Nissan, would have production en mass, they make bespoke products. It may take them up to a year to finish a valve, because the  so the atmosphere of the site was very different! It was much more relaxed. They spoke to us about their apprenticeship schemes as well, and it was good to see how many opportunities there are for people wanting to enter into engineering.

Tuesday 21st July: Reece Innovation Today, we visited Reece Innovation. It was interesting to see what the company that sponsors this summer school does; we learnt that the Reece group is actually a collection of 5 companies; Pearson Engineering, Responsive Engineering, Pipe Coil Technology, Reece Innovation, and Velocity. They have recently bought a new building in Newcastle, so things were still being built and set up there, but there was still lots of manufacturing taking place. We saw how they welded the parts, and were shown the machines they use to cut materials, of which there were 3 main types; cutters that used lasers, cutters that used fire and cutters that used water.   It was interesting to see Reece innovation, because rather than having a specific product that they manufacture, they make products that clients need making upon request, which was very much unlike Nissan, and also dissimilar to Bel Valves, although the two companies do work with more bespoke products.

 

 

 

Wednesday 22nd July: On Wednesday we continued writing up our reports on our project. We also watched a presentation on earthquakes delivered by Robert from Durham university and from New Zealand. It was great to see expert taking about their fields and it was very helpful with our reports, especially for me because I am primarily researching the science behind earthquakes and detection and measurement techniques.

Thursday 23rd July: We continued working on our reports for most of the day again today, but we also learnt about how to produce an academic poster, which we will be making and presenting on the last day of the 3 weeks. We were shown how these types of posters are used at conferences to convey information about research, which seems like an exciting thing to do.

Friday 24th July: On Friday we continued with work in the morning, and in the afternoon we talked about what qualities we looked for in engineers, and what made a successful engineer. We also looked at the problem of the lack of women in engineering. To do this we looked at some quotes from people saying why they thought that there was this lack of women in engineering; some were unfair, such as “women are less scientifically minded”, and others were just wrong, such as “choosing a STEM subject limits your options”, and “There are more career opportunities in the arts” (I should be careful what I say here). It’s interesting to see what the public thinks about STEM and women in STEM even now!

Week 2

On the first day we visited BEL Valves, an engineering group who produce valves for things such as oil rigs. It was interesting to see another side to engineering, as we found out that sometimes it may take the company up to one year to produce only one valve, compared with Nissan where they were producing around 50,000 cars per year. We met a group of girls who worked there, and found out what it was like to be female in a male-dominated environment.

We went to the Reece Group on Tuesday, and found out more about the five groups within the Reece Group. We had a guided tour of the workshop and what each machine does, followed by an interesting talk with a woman engineer who works for Reece Innovation. It was really helpful to find out about how she got into engineering from doing a degree in physics, and what her day-to-day job is like.

 

Later on in the week we were given a presentation on how earthquakes are formed, which was great because it made me realise just how little I had known about them before. The people who we spoke to were experts in Geology and earthquakes, and it was a really great opportunity to ask them questions about geology and their careers in general.

We also had a few demonstrations from a student at Northumbria Uni, who was finishing his degree in physics. One was an example of how a building moves in response to an earthquake, which was helpful to our project on the Nepal Earthquake.

On the last day, we had an interesting discussion on the differences between men and women in both engineering, and life in general. We were shown a video clip from a woman who gave Bratz Dolls a make-under so that they were more natural and suitable for younger girls. The point was that Bratz dolls, with their heavy makeup, and extremely unrealistic bodies, were bad role-models to younger girls. We then had a go at our own– it was great fun.

Week 3

We started off Week 3 with a visit to MACAW Engineering, a company who specialise in pipeline engineering. We were introduced to the world of drones, and even got to fly a small one (or tried to fly a small one). We had a presentation from a girl who had just become an engineer at the business, and a Q&A session with a group of female engineers. Both of which were really informative and helpful in finding out about the different ways and reasons people get into engineering.

The next day we visited Kromek – a company who produce radiation detectors to work in the medical, security and nuclear sectors. We were given lots of information about what it’s like to study physics at university, then the physics behind radiation and the detectors Kromek had produced. It was amazing to think that such a small object could be capable of so much. After having a go at detecting an unknown chemical in a tin, we were given a tour of the clean room. For this we had to change into gorgeous lab coats, hair nets and stylish white shoes, which ended up taking longer than the actual tour did! We were shown some of the radiation materials, and then an example of a machine that was used to detect banned materials in bottles at airports.  

To get used to the designing aspect of Engineering, which we hadn’t really focused on before, we had an instrument-making workshop. We were given instructions to set up a circuit to power the spinner which would make the instrument work by itself. Then it was up to us to design and produce the instrument using only: glue, tape, cardboard, drums, shakers, and drumsticks. It was really good to have a go at engineering ourselves and get used to the designing and problem-solving… and also really fun!

At the end of the week we finished off our academic research and posters on the Nepal earthquake, ready for the presentation day on Friday.

Monday 13th July Day 1- Beamish

When we arrived at Beamish we were shown to the lamp cabin by the heads of learning, Simon and Holly, who explained the dangers of having a naked flame in the mine and how they had been redesigned and developed to prevents accidents. They started with a small flame that was reflected by a metal disk that amplified the light. It was soon realised that a metal gauze prevented heat passing through so they began to use them on the lamps. Since it prevented heat escaping through, if the flame happened to come into contact with methane that was trapped in the rocks it would contain the explosion. Before these lamps were developed some unfortunate soul would have to go into the mine with a torch, wearing very wet clothing and would have to light the methane in the mine to get rid of it.

In the afternoon we attempted to build a track that would have lifted the mine cart from the mine and load it onto a boat to export it. It proved to be more difficult than it looked despite it being a three-piece operation and it illustrated that designing mechanisms isn’t necessarily the hard part as the building of them can be just as difficult. The trip gave a good insight to what mechanisms influenced today’s technology and how people managed to use integrity to work with what materials they had at the time. It was also interesting to learn about how people dealt with the situation- miners having to crawl through 18″ high tunnels 6 days a week for 12 hours etc.

Tuesday 14th July Day 2- Nissan(Day 1)

We began with a short introduction to the F1 challenge by looking at some pre made cars that met the spec and we had a go at racing them and testing our reaction times. They were able to reach the end of the 20m track in just over a second and were propelled by a canister in the back firing CO2. We followed this by using a programme called ‘Autodesk Inventor’ and tried designing some wheels and a basic car body by following the instructions just to get used to it initially. After a few frustrating hours of getting used to it and looking at a few more examples of cars we started to design our own cars.

 

Wednesday 15th July Day 3- Nissan(Day 2)

We finished designing the main bodies of the cars and moved on to designing the nose cones and back wings which were to be 3D printed along with the wheels. After lunch we had a factory tour, it was surprising to see how busy it was; there were car doors being carried above our heads, people driving around on trolley like vehicles and the production lines moving non-stop. We learned that every job carried out by each person takes 59 seconds and for every minute that the production line stopped it cost them £3,000. There are around 7000 people employed at Nissan; 6999 of them drove a Nissan car (the other guy rode horseback) and 6998 of them were men.

Thursday 16th July Day 4- Nissan(Day 3)

We finished the cars by printing the nose cones, wheels and back wings and cutting out the bodies out of wood. As we didn’t have time to paint them properly we used highlighters to decorate them and added the final touches to our cars in preparation for racing them. My group’s car (Phil) won its race however it was about 20g too light and to be within the spec they have to be 54g +/- 0.5g. The specification for the F1 challenge was very specific and you would lose 6pts for every fault with your car which makes it very important to stick to the guidelines.

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