Week two- Beth

On Monday we visited British engines where, upon our arrival, we were given a short presentation on BEL Valves and what they were about which allowed us to have a small insight into what engineers do within their company. We then got a tour of their shop floor which involved seeing where they tested all of the valves and we were told about the pressures that they were being tested at. After the tour of the factory, we were then taken back to the meeting room where we got to speak to females who worked within the company. I thought that speaking to these females was very helpful and informative. After BEL Valves, we went back to the university where we carried on with our research.

The following day, we went to Reece group limited where we were also given a presentation on our arrival. We were told lots of information about their company and what they manufacture. We found out that they manufacture a variety of things including military equipment which would enable soldiers to avoid mines within the field that they are working in. After the presentation we then got a tour of the shop floor, we got to see many welders in action and look at a few of the products which had been finished. Many of the workers had to pay a lot of attention to detail especially when they are checking over the dimensions of the final product. We then took taxis back to the university in the afternoon and carried on with our academic research.

On Wednesday, we began the day with a talk from two visitors with one of them being from New Zealand. They came in to talk to us in depth about earthquakes. I found this extremely interesting and I learnt quite a lot about earthquakes in a very small space of time. For example, I learnt more about fault planes and that they are approximately 30km in depth (usually) but they can go as far as 100km in depth under extreme circumstances. We did a small practical involving a brick, we pulled the brick along the surface of a wooden board and estimated the amount of force required to move it and the distance that it moved. We then took measurements of the brick on the sand paper, where we found out that it moves a much smaller distance even though it requires a larger force to be moved. The brick was used to symbolise a fault plane. I also learned that bamboo is a good cheap material to be used in buildings to make them more earthquake resilient as they are flexible and can move with an earthquake when one occurs. I used this information as part of my academic poster. In the afternoon, Pietro showed us the Physics behind acoustic waves which was also very interesting to learn about.

Sarah, a member of the think physics team, came into the lab on Thursday morning to talk to us more about academic posters. This was very useful and gave me many ideas on how I should lay my academic poster out and what sort of information I should be including on it. After this talk I was able to begin my academic poster properly. For the rest of the day we carried on with writing up our reports.

On Friday we carried on with our research again, and by this stage I was nearing the end of my report and was well on my way with the academic poster. In the afternoon, we did something which was a lot different from what we having been doing so far. We went into a classroom and we watched a video on engineers and we all had to write down the skills that engineers need to have in order to be successful in the work place; we also had to write down what skills we have too and how we can use these skills in a future job. We then had to choose a doll and recreate it, I wiped off the dolls old face and painted on a new one, I then began to make a lab coat for my doll. I decided that my doll was going to be a biomedical engineer. We also had to create a label for our doll listing all of the skills that it needs to have in order to be successful in its career.