Brooklands Innovation Academy â Women in STEM Day at Brooklands Museum
On Monday 23rd June, 30 KS3 students attended a Women in STEM Day at Brooklands Museum.
The day began with introductions from Ruth Amos who, at the age of 16, had won ‘Young Engineer for Britain’ by designing and putting into production her ‘Stair Steady’ which she made for her GSCE Design Technology exam. She explained that she had started out wanting to be a lawyer but took DT as a subject and realised that engineering was for her. She shared this journey as an inventor with the students.
She then introduced Kirsty Murphy who became the Red Arrows first female pilot who gave an inspirational talk on how she achieved this and that nothing is out of reach should you put your mind to it.
Both speakers were passionate about inspiring women into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) careers.
During the day the students were split into two groups and completed different activities. These included who could make the highest tower by welding chocolate pieces together. SMS managed to build a tower from chocolate pieces to an impressive 23cm tall. The students also made rockets from water bottles and fired them using air pressure, one of the rockets flew in excess of 30 metres. The day also included the lovely Brooklands Museum volunteers showing the students round where they saw the McClaren Car made from lego, the retired Concord plane and a wellington bomber that had been recovered from Loch Ness.
The final part of the day was a talk from two women who work for McClaren, both working in the Formula 1 team. The day showed the students that STEM careers are creative, innovative and enjoyable.