Space Engineers Project Empowers Girls in Engineering

Space Engineers Project Empowers Girls in Engineering

Space Engineers was an exciting project that inspired girls through engineering and science. It also provided engineers with an opportunity to engage with girls and share their skills, passion, and expertise in an innovative way. With the support of 28 volunteer engineers, 331 Girl guides from 29 Girlguiding units took part in a space-themed immersive experience while working towards gaining their Space Engineers badge.

 Jo Fox, project manager at Space Fund, worked with Girlguiding Kent East and the volunteer engineers to design the project elements, put together the Space Engineers Badge, and overall organise the running of the main activities.

Visualising themselves as engineers

The overarching ambition of the project was to help girls visualise themselves as engineers. Over the course of several weeks, the girls used the Royal Academy of Engineering’s This Is Engineering campaign to see areas of engineering that interested them. They prepared questions then interviewed real engineers, they learned about female engineer role models, applied for engineering jobs, and learned about engineering in space. Then finally working as space engineers on a disaster-prone Moon base, they used engineering to solve problems related to; robotics, power, light, carbon dioxide and water.

The engineers, who came from all over the UK, volunteered in a number of ways including; helping design the Girlguiding badge and Moon base activities, creating short videos, connecting with the Girlguiding units, and being interviewed by the girls. 

Surprises and challenges

Although women are under-represented in engineering it was surprising that 64% of our volunteer engineers were female. We had aimed to recruit at least 50% so this exceeded our expectations. I’m not sure whether this was because we were working with Girlguides on the project (which attracted a few engineers that were once Girlguides or are currently leaders) or indicative of the increasing numbers of women engineers today.

It was really inspiring to work with all the engineers and to meet so many from all different backgrounds and fields of engineering. I spent a couple of weeks interviewing some of our volunteers towards the end of the project and it was fascinating to hear about their jobs and engineering projects they have worked on. Their enthusiasm for the work they do and engineering as a whole was really contagious and has inspired us for our next project!

We also had a few challenges along the way. For example, some of the Girlguiding units did not have very good wifi at their regular meeting place. This meant they struggled to run the “Interview an Engineer“ videocall session and to show the various instruction/inspiring videos we had made.

However, we overcome these challenges with the help of some of our volunteer engineers who visited a number units in person. We also made some of the videos available to download from a drobox and the leaders gave links out to the girls so they could look at the videos at home.

We found some wonderful venues in our target areas for our Space Engineers events (we mostly used Girlguiding and scout huts campgrounds). However, we still found that some girls did not participate because they did not want to travel far from where they normally meet. Feedback from leaders was that this had been a common theme since coming out of lockdown. 

Future goals

Several Brownies who participated in the project were so inspired that they decided to create a version of the program for their unit. With the help of their leaders, they ran a mini–Space Engineers event adapting many of the experiences and challenges. It was brilliant to see!

Looking ahead, we are discussing with Girlguiding about the possibility of expanding the project to more girl guides in the South-East and adapting it to be run by the leaders. Many leaders have kept in touch with their volunteer engineers and will hopefully have them visit again.

Advice for Future Ingenious Projects

Working with the volunteer engineers has been such an educational and fun experience. Having their input from the very start and throughout the project, made it a better experience for all.

Jo says: “I am really thankful for the time and energy they all put into inspiring a new generation of girls with engineering, and I would recommend collaborating with engineers at the earliest point the project allows.”

I am really thankful for the time and energy they all put into inspiring a new generation of girls with engineering, and I would recommend collaborating with engineers at the earliest point the project allows.