At the end of November we announced the first 3 zones for I’m an Engineer.
- High Performance: for engineers pushing technology to the limit.
- Energy: for engineers involved in any aspect of energy. Producing more or using less.
- Health: for engineers helping us stay fit and alive. Medical, environmental, whatever sets your pulse racing.
We’ve had a good few suggestions in from people and with over 90 engineers having now applied to take part we’ve now decided on two more zones:
- Water: for engineers who deal with water. Clean water, dirty water, deep water, old water.
- Transport: for engineers who move things. Bridge builders, car designers, rocket scientists.
We also have some more good news. The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) have asked to sponsor a sixth zone. This is going to be:
- Measurement: for STFC engineers who work out how big, how far, how fast, how heavy how…
Engineers can still apply to take part. Applications close on February 3rd so don’t delay too long.
Whilst I’m a big fan of the whole concept of the event, I admit that I’m a bit confused by how the zones will be used. Those chosen seem to be be a mix of “application area” (Transport, Health, Energy, Water) and “engineering aspects” (Measurement, High Performance). This makes it quite difficult to decide what area a particular job or question might best fit into.
For example, my research looks at turbochargers to go on the engines of large trucks. This obviously fits into transport as a general application, however my work involves taking accurate measurements of all sorts of things, and my overall aim is to produce very high performance. So which zone would be best?
I think the zones really miss out structures. I am a geotechnical engineer and I was thinking of applying, but now I am not sure how I would fit in. I realise there are a lot of ‘engineering’ type subjects but the zones seem to miss out a lot of the core engineering employment sectors in this country.
Thanks for both comments.
We’ve made the zones broad so that each zone will have a mix of different types of engineers whose work touches in some way on that theme. Rather than separate zones for chemical or civil engineers for example. This does mean many engineers will fit into multiple zones, but this gives flexibility in balancing the zones so the students see how different aspects of engineering work together.
A building/structures zones was on the shortlist of zones and with only 6 zones we’re limited in which we can run. We hope to have geotechnical engineers in some of the other zones.
I love that a ‘Health Zone’ was created! I think many students don’t necessarily think of biomedical applications when they think of engineering for the first time.. this will be a great opportunity to get more students engaged with Biomedical and Agricultural Engineering!
I’m surprised at how shallow/narrow the zones are, and it’s a real surprise to not see any communications/electronics/IT areas represented, especially given the focus of the website graphics.
I suspect that this says more about how engineering is perceived, than representing the industry as it is.
@Lauren, thanks for your comment. We really do appreciate the feedback. We’ve tried to create zones that a lot of the breadth of engineering but with only 30 spaces available we could never cover the whole spectrum. You’ll see from our post asking for suggestions for zones that we did consider communications. In the end though we didn’t go down that route but we hoped that within the zones we choose there would be engineers worked in electronics and communication.
Have a look at who is taking part in March 2012. You’ll see the High Performance zone has two engineers focused on IT and comms, Measurement has one, and Transport has one. Almost a whole zone there.