Enginuity Day encourages more females to study engineering

Senior high school girls will descend on the Faculty of Engineering at The University of Auckland on 1 July for a day of activities designed to boost the numbers of female engineers.

More than 250 school girls from 43 secondary schools from all over the North Island are taking part in ‘Enginuity Day’.

This year’s theme is 'How engineers design for real people'. Nine workshops will demonstrate the creativity and problem solving that all engineers use in real life, and the girls will hear from extraordinary female engineers who are solving global issues.

Activities will range from interacting with robots; experimenting with biomaterials; learning how to podcast from a mobile phone; and producing a radio show for listeners to download from the web.

Women in Engineering Equity Adviser Robyn MacLeod says the Engineering Faculty hopes to increase its number of female students to 50 percent. Currently, 22 percent of engineering undergraduates and 25 percent of engineering postgraduates are women.

“So many girls don’t realise the creative opportunities that engineering leads to, and the chances it creates to make a real difference to people’s lives. Female engineers make fantastic project managers as they often have great communication and teamwork skills,” Robyn says.

“We hope that as more girls become aware of the possibilities an engineering career will hold, the numbers of women students will increase.”

The girls will hear from graduate Victoria Fray, who through the organisation Engineers Without Borders is using her skills to improve infrastructure in impoverished communities.

Dr Michelle Dickinson will demonstrate her work in nanotechnology. She has helped countries all over the world figure out why and how things break at the nanoscale - from the chip components within computers to diseased bones in elderly patients.

Dr Elizabeth Fassman’s research aims to sneak technology into everyday landscapes and building materials, to prevent storm water runoff entering our rivers and oceans.

Dr Rosalind Archer will reveal how mathematics and computing are used in various energy industries including oil and gas, geothermal energy, wind farms and carbon dioxide sequestration (storing carbon underground).

Current students will reveal the secrets of student life including the many social and academic organisations that students can belong to at The University of Auckland.

Notes to editors:

Enginuity Day is on at The Faculty of Engineering, 20 Symonds Street, Auckland City, on Thursday 1 July 2010. Activities take place from 10.30am to 1.30pm.