To mark World Engineering Day, female students from Futures Institute visited Haas F1 Team, Collins Aerospace and Prodrive for a holistic view of the engineering and manufacturing industry.
Students were given a tour around the Haas F1 Team facilities, got up close with the intricate processes involved in pitstops, worked with race engineers to decode telemetry, and sat down for a Q&A session with female staff to learn about their career paths.
Ayao Komatsu, Director of Engineering at Haas F1 Team remarked how crucial it is that engineering is an accessible career path for the next generation, especially for women where gender balance in the sector needs to be improved. Read more about our visit to Haas F1 Team here.
Dr Catherine Pickup, Director of Project Based Learning at Futures Institute, said “We were really excited to be attending a Girls in Engineering day at Haas, Prodrive and Collins Aerospace. When we were first approached, more students wanted to come than we had room for. Students often come to our school because of their interest in technology and our unique curriculum which has a focus on transdisciplinary learning. In years 9 & 10 we run specific employability projects in different areas including health and engineering. These projects aim to develop 21st century skills that will be vital to our students in the workplace such as teamwork and creativity – all the projects also aim to link to employers. Most importantly, the girls are keen to understand the range of opportunities that could be available to them in exciting successful companies like Collins, Haas and Prodrive,”
World Engineering Day for Sustainable Development (WED), is an official date created by the United Nations Educations, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).