Ruth Amos
Case Study: Ruth Amos
“There are so many young people out there who think they are not clever enough to be an engineer, that they don’t come from the right places, that engineers don’t look like them … and they are wrong! … Engineering has a place for everyone! ”
Nearly missed opportunities
Ruth grew up in Derbyshire and she loved making and designing things when she was a child. However she never thought she could become an engineer as she didn’t know of many women in engineering. Through secondary school (she attended a technology college) she thought she was going to be a lawyer and she was going to university. She nearly missed the opportunity to explore a career in engineering until one of her teachers set her a problem of designing a mobility product that helps people to be able to walk up and down their stairs. She won an engineering award for her invention when she was only 15!
“It was only when I won the engineering award that started to meet all of these incredible female engineers and I was like oh, maybe I want to be an engineer … maybe I could be an engineer”
Looking back she thinks she would a bored lawyer as she loves being an engineer and inventing things.
A Zimmer frame for stairs
Ruth’s imagination and resilience helped her to invent StairSteady, a mobility device to make it easier for people with mobility issues to climb stairs. She says the idea is very simple:
“I always think about it as a walker or a Zimmer frame for the stairs …”
StairSteady is like a bar perpendicular to a handrail. People can hold to the bar and pull themselves up or down the stairs safely. This is a mechanical device with no electronics components. It uses friction (a force created between two surfaces that are trying to slide) and it locks itself on the rail. Have a look below in how it works.
Ruth also had to learn a lot about setting up her own business as her role didn’t stop with the invention of StairSteady. To bring a product to the market you have to prototype it, work with manufacturers, patent it and then market it.
Kids Invent Stuff
Ruth and her work colleague Shawn founded and present a youtube channel for children named kids Invent Stuff where they are committed to get children inventions come to life. Children aged 4 to 11 send them their ideas to Ruth and Shawn and they pick one to make: from firing water shooting piano to a jellycoper (yes an helicopter that shoots jelly)!
Ruth says that they feel the pressure to make the inventions justice and that they start every project from scratch. Most times they don’t have all the answers and there is lot of problem solving, being creative with solutions and this is a massive part of engineering!
Every single project they pick some fails and they try to show that was well as we learn a lot when something fails.
“I thought it was only special people that design and invented things and here was something that I had designed being made and that was such a pivotal moment on my journey into engineering so that is something that Shaun and I want to get the next generation and show them, no you can really shape the future!”
During lockdown she made an amazing pair of giant retractable wings made of red feathers for social distancing, which you can see in the image on top of this page.
Stereotypes and reclaiming inventing
Ruth loves to talk to young people about engineering, especially girls and tell them about the role they can have in engineering:
“I love problem solving and when we talk to people about engineering, we to talk about how creative it is, we have to talk about how we are solving problems because I think sometimes that gets missed out when young people are learning about engineering, and they don’t realise how exciting it is …”
There are still too many stereotypes associated with engineering and engineers and this is why Ruth and Shawn like to talk about being inventive rather than doing engineering as you need similar skills for both! Ruth firmly believes that:
“We need to reclaim inventing back!”
Greg Bowie
Case Study: Greg Bowie
Apprenticeship into engineering
Greg remembers having a curious mind as a young child. He loved looking at things to see how they work, which drove his parents mad! At school he was good at maths and science, and joined the Royal Air Force Air Cadets. He was never interested in going to university, so left school at 16 and took up an apprenticeship at a tool moulding company.
“I was never sort of an academic kind of person, and I find that for me a much more valuable way of learning is getting your hands stuck in, working out how things work …”
Healing broken bones
Greg is currently a manufacturing engineer at Invibio, a company working on biomaterials for medical applications. He uses his hands-on skills and creativity to create and test trauma plates, which are used to hold broken pieces of bone together and allow them to heal. When someone suffers a nasty fracture, they might have one of Invibio’s plates surgically implanted to help stabilise the injury while the bone grows back.
Usually trauma plates are made of metals such as titanium or steel. However, Greg and his team are developing a new material which combines carbon fibres thinner than human hair and plastics.
Greg says the way the material is engineered is much closer to the natural structure of bone, which can lead to good biocompatibility so the plates will encourage broken bones to heal faster. But there are other advantages too:
“When we have these carbon fibre reenforced plastic plates another benefit is that they can X-ray through the plate and see how that bone is developing and healing.”
Learning from failures
When starting his journey into engineering as an apprentice, Greg became resilient by learning from his mistakes. One of his favourites quotes is, “You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you” (Barack Obama).
Being resilient and patient helps him better to understand the best ratio of carbon fibres to plastic and how the materials should be layered together.
“We’ve got some understanding [of] how the material may work, but we need to make it, we need to test, it we need to see if it fails, how it fails, and [work out] what we need to change.”
In particular Greg and his colleagues need to understand how much carbon fibre reinforced plastic plates bend without breaking (this is called flexural strength), and how tightly screws can be inserted through the material. It goes without saying how important it is to study these properties before a plate goes inside a human body.
Under the sea and other medical applications
Carbon fibre reinforced plastics have become common engineering materials, used everywhere from car components to tennis racquets. They’re also used in pipes for deep sea applications. Being able to tailor the strength and flexibility of the material, they can be ideal for encasing pipes which will have to sit on the seabed without being crushed by the high pressures.
Invibio is also developing other materials for medical applications. For example, they 3D print porous (sponge-like) plastic materials as spinal cages. This allows bone to grow into the implant as well as growing around it.
Gregs loves that his engineering work, and the biomaterials and products he helps to develop, make a difference and improve people’s lives.
“That is what I love about where I work now, it’s an interesting field to be in.”
Going back in time
Greg had a superpower he would like to be able to time travel. Not necessarily into the future: to go back in time, to see how engineers and inventors developed the things they did. That said, he is curious about where biomaterials technology is going to be in 10 years’ time.
“How many bones can we fix in the human body with these plates? Because it not necessarily always suitable for all the applications giving the existing manufacturing process that we use …”
Position
Manufacturing Engineer
Key Attributes
creative, patient, resilient
Qualifications
Apprenticeship, GCSEs
Employer
Shrouk El-Attar
Case Study: Shrouk El-Attar
“That idea of what an engineer looks like is really out of date and it needs to change […] people engineer in their heels, people engineer in their dresses, and for me it’s such a creative field!”
A journey of resilience
Shrouk left her native Egypt at the age of 15, arriving in the UK with her family. She was eventually granted refugee status on the basis of her sexuality, but her mother, sister and brother were deported. Showing remarkable resilience, she enrolled to study electrical engineering at Cardiff University, but could only start to study once her asylum case was complete – which took several years. She believes that more needs to be done to enable asylum seekers to access higher education, and to help people considering engineering as a career:
“We need to produce more than 186,000 engineers every single year, just to meet our engineering shortfall by 2024, and the same time we prevent people from accessing engineering”
Improving the quality of life of others
Since graduating from university, Shrouk has collaborated with others in a variety of projects. She’s designed robots that can measure tiny things just a few nanometers across, and built a machine that can detect cancer cells based on how electrons wobble in the presence of magnetic fields.
Currently, she gets to release her creativity designing and testing products which help improve the quality of life of many women and others across the world. She find engineering to be a very collaborative field:
“You work with other engineers, scientists, data scientists and artists to make your product look nice …”
Changing perceptions of engineering
Shrouk is a passionate advocate for changing perceptions of engineering, as there is still a long way to go in terms of attracting creative people into the sector. She also works towards valuing non-univeristy routes into engineering:
“We need to change our language. We need to make it more accessible, we also need to change the default routes into engineering. Why is just the university route considered? Why can’t we take on more apprentices?”
A passionate advocate
In her free time Shrouk is a belly dancer, and she fundraises to help the LGBTQ community in countries such as Egypt. In 2018 she was awarded Young Woman of the Year in the Women on the Move Awards, from Migrants Organise and the UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency).
Inventive podcast
Shrouk is featured in an episode of the Inventive Podcast:
Jens Dopke
Case Study: Jens Dopke
Jens is a senior detector scientist at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
The importance of foreign languages
Jens is originally from Germany, so he had a slightly different education to here in the UK. Jens did the equivalent of A-Levels in Physics and Maths and studied Physics at university. He then completed a PhD in particle physics. Looking back at his time in school he underestimated the importance of learning a new foreign languages.
“I was never good at languages, but being able to use them, made me appreciate them a lot more and I noticed that it often takes a lot less than perfection to get somewhere.“
Being a senior detector scientist
According to Jens, being a senior detector scientist often involves being curious, thinking outside of the box and coming up with newer, more efficient ways to do experiments. A big part of his time at work is spent designing, assembling and testing devices for particle physics experiments worldwide.
“I often set out, not knowing how to fix a problem or build something and am very gratified if I can live up to the challenge.“
There is no place like CERN
CERN is home to the most advanced particle physics experiments and this is Jens favourite place to work. It reminds him of the collaborative nature of scientific research. He is open-minded about working with new colleagues from different backgrounds.
“The solution generally involves interaction with many people […] It often helps me to be able to understand people of different backgrounds and bridging (as best as I can) language barriers”
However CERN is also a beautiful place to visit because is located on the boarder between the Jura mountains in France and the Alps in Switzerland.
Ancient scrolls and hiking
When Jens is not working in particle physics experiments he has an unusual hobby: using physics and computing skills to make burnt ancient scrolls readable! He also loves hiking:
I love to go hiking, as far and high as possible and whilst I am afraid of sudden drops, I am perfectly ok when I am wearing my safety gear. I love the Scottish highlands, tend to visit early every year and meet interesting new people in the middle of nowhere.
William Pilcher
Case Study: William Pilcher
William is the deputy IT Service Delivery Manager for the Particle Physics Department at the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).
The importance of apprenticeships
William developed many of his IT knowledge through a one year apprenticeship for STFC. This meant that he could study in college whilst gaining hands on experience at the Rutherford Appleton labs. This gave him great skills and knowledge of this fast paced workplace.
After his apprenticeship, William applied to a full time position with the Particle Physics Department (PPD) and was successful!
“I was ever so grateful for the opportunity presented to me through my apprenticeship, and it’s great to see that there’s a renewed focus on similar pathways for younger versions of me!“
What IT service delivery managers do.
William is responsible for key central management platforms. These are things like Windows/Mac support, anti-virus software and printing solutions. His ideas are shared at staff meetings where everyone can work together. Here they share more ideas and improve plans to support staff across all STFC sites.
“While it’s easy to describe my IT job as “being adept at Googling problems, and even better at switching things off and on again”, there’s a great deal of depth to my day-to-day tasks! “
What does William love about his job?
William loves the wide variety that his work has because it keeps things interesting and exciting! Sometimes he has a large workload and it can feel difficult having a lot of things to do at once. But, it is all worthwhile to get to meet staff from all around the department. He loves to hear what they are up to and about the effects that his work is having.
“Working in such a friendly, open environment is the key benefit to me – if ever there is a quiet moment in my work, I know I can go and speak to colleagues to hear what exciting projects they’re pursuing.”
He has worked in the PPD computing group for five years helping with a variety of projects. He has helped with masterclass open days, introducing computer software and supporting colleagues working from home during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Competitive sports and socialising
Outside of working hours William likes to stay active. He takes part in different competitive sports but enjoys weightlifting and long distance running the most. He believes that having a good social life is very important. Whether that be going to music events with his friends or hiking and meeting new people.
Paul Mann
Case Study: Dr Paul Mann
Paul is a biogeochemist working at Northumbria University. Biogeochemists study the different chemical, biological and physical processes that create the natural environment we live in.
Ancient carbon
Paul spends many of the summer months in remote regions of Alaska, Canada or Siberia to collect water and soil samples for analysis. Thousands of years ago carbon was ‘locked up’ in the water and soil in these regions. Paul is trying to understand if that ancient carbon is now being released back into the environment.
“We need to understand this, as the release of ancient carbon may speed up climate change in our lifetime.”
SCUBA diving
Paul grew up miles away from the sea in Birmingham, UK. He remembers being told by a careers advisor that he should become a bomb disposal expert because he liked SCUBA diving and science.
“They laughed when I actually said I wanted to become a marine biologist. I grew up thinking I would never (a) be clever enough to go to university, (b) actually teach at a university, and (c) be able to travel to amazing places and do something I love.”
Paul has traveled to many interesting places for work, including living and working in Antarctica for 1½ years. His research has also taken him to the Congo river in Africa, the Mekong river in Asia, and a number of the great Arctic rivers draining Alaska and Siberia.
“I always loved the ocean as a kid, especially snorkelling. I then took up SCUBA diving. At school, I enjoyed science. Combining the two passions felt like the obvious thing to do.”
While studying, Paul has also had numerous other jobs to help pay the bills: working in call centres, door to door sales and banking.
Paul’s advice to young people
“Don’t let others tell you can’t do something. Follow what you want to do, irrespective of how you do in grades. I never got my ‘best’ grades in science. Take time after each step to work out where you are and what you want to do next, don’t be afraid to change direction at any point (you do have time – even if it doesn’t feel like it).”
Paul is currently working on a project called Cacoon, looking at how the Arctic Ocean will respond to changes in the supply of water, carbon and nutrients from land. It’s important to know this because it could influence the climate globally, affecting you, your family and maybe your children. NUSTEM have worked with Paul to create workshops for schools about Cacoon so that he can share his learning with students.
As well as researching biogeochemistry, Paul also teaches undergraduate students studying geography at Northumbria University.
Systems Engineer
Systems engineers design and create systems to meet specific needs by combining and integrating people, components and processes into a whole system and ensuring each of those components work correctly. Systems are used in industrial processes to increase output, but a toilet, a refrigerator, an air conditioner, an automatic iron, a car and even the human body are all systems. Larger systems include moveable bridges, manufacturing plants or the International Space Station.
Attributes: collaborative, imaginative, resilient
Ecologist
Ecologists are concerned with ecosystems as a whole, studying the numbers and distribution of people, plants and animals and how these organisms interact within their habitats. Ecologists usually specialise in a particular environment such as terrestrial, marine or freshwater. They use surveys to identify, monitor and record organisms within an ecosystem and may study the affects of the removal or return of predators over time.
Attributes: collaborative, organised, resilient
Useful links:
- The Primary Science Teaching Trust has a downloadable slideshow (PDF) about Kelsey Archer Barnett who is a deep sea ecologist and a downloadable slideshow (PDF) about Dr Ben Woodcock who is a ecological entomologist. It’s part of their resource A Scientist Just Like Me.
Robotic Technician
Robotic technicians work with a team of robotics professionals, assisting mechanical engineers, electronics engineers, and robotics engineers in designing, manufacturing, testing, and repairing robots. A robotics technician acts as a liaison between the development team and the customer. They perform the installation of the robot and provide training on its functions. Robotic technicians are also in charge of maintenance and repairs. They may work in for the government in defence, for the medical industry or in the manufacturing industry.
Attributes: self-motivated, patient, resilient
Civil Engineer
Civil engineers are responsible for the designing and building of structures such as bridges, transport links and road systems as well as larger structures such as stadiums. Civil engineers work in both the public and private sector, planning projects with clients, analysing surveys, creating blueprints, checking the risks and the effects on the environment and managing and checking progress at each stage of the project.
Attributes: open-minded, organised, resilient
Useful links:
- The Primary Science Teaching Trust has a downloadable slideshow (PDF) about Kath Waring who is a chartered civil engineer and a downloadable slideshow (PDF) about Jyoti Sehdev who is a civi engineer. It’s part of their resource A Scientist Just Like Me.
