Women into Engineering 2022

Women into Engineering at The JCB Academy

Over 200 pupils from 35 primary school across Staffordshire and Derbyshire came to The JCB Academy over five days in July to participate in a variety of fun, informative and interactive challenges as part of the academy’s annual ‘Women into Engineering’ event. The event is part of ‘Women into Engineering’, a UK initiative to raise the profile of women in engineering and the career opportunities available to girls in this exciting industry.

This year was the 10 year anniversary of our Women into Engineering event, and celebrated with over 50 pupils from Glebe Academy, Ryecroft CofE Middle School, Walton Priory Middle School and Shobnall Primary Academy. Also in attendance were over 20 female engineers from academy partners who volunteered their time to come in and inspire the pupils into an engineering career.

The event consists of an informative session followed by two engineering-based challenges: the egg crash challenge and tower building challenge. The firm favourite seems to be the egg crash, where the girls design a protective enclosure to secure an egg using a range of craft material. The enclosure needs to be secured to a physics dynamic cart which is then released down a ramp, crashing into a wall. Mr Caine said, “Having spent 30 minutes designing their protective enclosure and decorating and personalising their egg with smiley faces, etc., the girls get very anxious when their cart is suspended at the top of the ramp ready for the drop and crash into the wall. The atmosphere is fantastic.”
The event is facilitated by The JCB Academy and assisted by their Y10 and Y12 learners and female engineers from JCB, Toyota UK, Rolls-Royce, Loughborough University, Bentley Motors, Harper Adams University, Institute of Engineering Technology, Royal Academy of Engineering, Williams F1 Racing and more.

The event is sponsored by some of the academy’s partners; JCB supply each girl with a goodie-bag consisting of branded stationery and a cap and other partners include Loughborough University and The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) who financially sponsor the event enabling the event to be a cost-free day for all of the schools taking part.