STEMalive! Inspirational Speaker - Phil Edwards, Weald Technology

STEMalive! events are a collaboration between educational charity, SATRO and Dr Elaine Hickmott of EH Enterprises. The events are designed to bring together STEM professionals and students in Years 11, 12 & 13 in a supportive environment to have cool conversations and be inspired by real career stories and insights in science, technology, engineering and maths. 

The next event is taking place on Thursday 10th March at St Peter's School, Guildford. We already have four STEM speakers confirmed! Over the next few weeks, we will be blogging short bios on each speaker.

Next up is Phil Edwards!

Phil Edwards

Founder and Managing Director

Weald Technology

Phil worked in design and manufacturing roles up to board-level, predominantly in high-technology organisations, until 2005 when he became a self-employed manufacturing advisor working on lean manufacturing, value-engineering and process improvement projects across all sectors.

In 2010 Phil spotted the emerging electric-vehicle sector and began a project to design an electric racing motorcycle, little knowing where it would lead to. That bike went on to set a UK record and, spurred on by its success, he is now running a project (that’s been 4 years in planning) to break the electric motorcycle world-record. In 2012 Phil founded Weald Technology to exploit the innovations and, under his leadership, the company has picked up numerous awards for engineering and innovation.

As well as a managing a number of other low-carbon transport projects Phil spends much of his time working with schools to inspire young people into taking up STEM subjects.

Weald Technology Website:      http://weald-tech.co.uk/

Fast Charge Website:                 http://fast-charge.org/

Phil on Twitter:                            @weald_tech

Phil on LinkedIn:                         https://www.linkedin.com/in/philaedwards

STEMalive! is FREE for schools to attend – Contact Lisa@satro.org.uk

Engineers share your knowledge and experience with us – Contact jules@satro.org.uk

James Lovelock by guest blogger John Faulkner

Hiking with his father on Leith Hill, young James Lovelock would admire the view across to the South Downs. Years later, in the 1960s, the view did not seem as clear. There was a haze. Was it man made? Where did it come from? The answer would introduce a precision instrument for measuring air pollution, both help to start the environmental movement and avert a catastrophe.

Inspired by visits to the Science Museum, impoverished James Lovelock self funded his ambition to become a scientist. Frustrated with university authority he did his science independently as a 'maverick'. Among his discoveries and inventions is the Electron Capture Detector (ECD).  This is an instrument so sensitive it can detect airborne particles in parts per trillion (1 in 1000,000,000,000). The ECD works by ionising a gas then passing an electrical current through it. Specific atoms or molecules introduced to the gas can be identified by changes in the current.

He used his ECD on the North Downs air. Testing for man made chlorofluorocarbons (CFC), used for aerosols and refrigerants, he discovered them in the wind from London. Was CFC dispersal wider? He part funded joining British research ship Shackleton on it's 1972 Antarctic voyage. His resulting paper and lectures on global dispersal alerted other scientists. Alarmingly they found CFC action was destroying the earth's ozone layer. Ozone protects life from the harmful effects of the sun's Ultra Violet radiation. In 1987 the Montreal Protocol, to control CFCs, was agreed by 197 UN countries and is the first worldwide agreement to protect the Earth's environment.

After a distinguished science career, at 96, James Lovelock now writes on the environment. He is most famous for the Gaia hypothesis developed while consulting NASA on how landers might test for the presence of life on Mars. Gaia proposes the Earth's environment is self regulating, where life maintains the balance of nature. Living processes, for example, coordinate to maintain the air's oxygen level at 21%, the exact proportion in air needed by our biosphere to survive.

Recognising Science Museum influences, in 2015, he donated his fascinating and important archive to it. It includes the ECD, built in his garden shed laboratory! See the link below...

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/Plan_your_visit/exhibitions/lovelock.aspx

There are many anecdotes from him and one that impresses me is his response during the war to using shaved rabbits to categorise degrees of skin burn. He refused to harm innocent animals and successfully conducted the tests on himself which he described as 'exquisitely painful'!

- John Faulkner, SATRO Volunteer

Beatrice 'Tilly' Shilling by guest blogger John Faulkner

This year is the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain and a hero who helped us to win it was engineer Beatrice 'Tilly' Shilling. Tilly Shilling always wanted to be an engineer. She bought a motorcycle at the age of 14, completely rebuilding it, later racing them in competition. In 1929, with encouragement from her employer, she became the one of only two women to study for an electrical engineering degree at the University of Manchester. Following this she obtained an MSc in mechanical engineering and in 1936 secured a Scientific Officer position at the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough.

On the outbreak of the second world war the Luftwaffe discovered that Spitfire and Hurricane fighters had an engine vulnerability. Designed to use carburettors, on diving, the fighter's Rolls Royce Merlin engine would starve of fuel triggering a cut-out. A catastrophic and potentially fatal problem during a dog fight. The enemy with their less powerful but fuel injected engines had a big advantage. An urgent solution was needed and it was Tilly's simple modification that saved the day. Installing her specially designed disc, into the engine's carburettor fuel inlet, the cut-outs could be  overcome. Leading a team of technicians out to frontline RAF airfields she rapidly modified every Spitfire and Hurricane engine. RAF fighter pilots could be now confident with engine power in battle and by March 1941 she completed the work.

After the war Tilly moved on to motor racing and work on Britain's Blue Streak rocket. She was awarded an OBE and a Phd in engineering from the University of Surrey. If you visit Farnborough you may see a pub named the Tilly Shilling in fond memory of her work. Some of her racing memorabilia, acquired in 2015, is at Brooklands Museum. On the track at Brooklands in the 1930's she won a famous Gold Star for lapping at an average of over 100 mph by motorcycle, being the first woman to achieve the challenge.

- John Faulkner, SATRO Volunteer

'Ada Lovelace' by guest blogger John Faulkner

"We may say most aptly, that the Analytical Engine weaves algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard-loom weaves flowers and leaves."

This Ada Lovelace quote describes her belief that complicated logical problems could be solved by machine, just as the recently invented automatic loom could weave brocade cloth. 

In 1833, at the age of 17, gifted mathematician Ada became an associate of Charles Babbage the Cambridge University Lucasian Professor of mathematics. He named her The Enchantress of Numbers. Then, tables such as for navigation, were calculated by human 'computers'  but prone to mistakes. Babbage saw mechanical processing could eliminate error and started to design a machine called the Analytical Engine. Translating a Babbage lecture about the engine inspired Ada to produce the very first published computer program. This required a mathematical algorithm to be converted into the sequence of steps necessary for the engine to compute. The program formed a table for punched card instructions. The cards were to operate the engine and in this case produce Bernoulli numbers, for use by mathematicians. Ada proposed that beside numbers there would be no reason why machines could not work with symbols such as musical notes.

Born on 10th December 1815 Ada grew up during the Industrial Revolution. With a scientific upbringing she had a natural desire to find out as much as she could about the world of engineering. She was married to the Earl of Lovelace and lived in Horsley with her three children. At the age of only 36 she died of cancer but her legacy is computer programming which lives on with us every moment of the day in the modern world.

Ada was a visionary and here are some of her quotes:

"A new, a vast, and a powerful language is developed for the future use of analysis, in which to wield its truths so that these may become of more speedy and accurate practical application for the purposes of mankind than the means hitherto in our possession have rendered possible."

"The Analytical Engine might act upon other things besides number, were objects found whose mutual fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations, and which should be also susceptible of adaptations to the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the engine… Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent."

.....and here, much like a modern day spreadsheet, is the first published program:

There is an exhibition at the Science Museum until the end of March 2016 of Ada's life and work...

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/Plan_your_visit/exhibitions/ada-lovelace.aspx

- John Faulkner, SATRO Volunteer

If you would like to find out more information and/or book tickets for the Ada Lovelace Evening taking place tomorrow in aid of SATRO follow this link. Alternatively call Guildford Tourist Information on 01483 444334

Dorothy Hodgkin by SATRO guest blogger John Faulkner

Many people will have been prescribed antibiotics to cure a nasty infection or even to save their lives. Behind the development of modern medicines like these is Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin who remains the only British woman to win a Nobel Prize in science. She won the 1964 chemistry prize outright for her techniques to find the atomic structure of biochemicals. Among her discoveries were the molecular structures of Penicillin (1945), Vitamin B12 (1955) and Insulin (1969). Knowing biochemical structure allows chemists to understand how drugs work. Microscopes cannot magnify to atomic level so the technique that she used was X-Ray Crystallography.

If you shine a laser through a fine lattice onto a screen, instead of a blurred shadow, a sharp diffraction pattern can be formed. It is possible to find out the shape of the lattice by using advanced mathematics along with the diffraction pattern measurements and the laser frequency. More energetic X-Ray's beamed through solids can create a diffraction pattern in a similar way. By focussing X-Rays through a crystal's lattice of atoms to get a diffraction pattern the molecular structure can be calculated. This was virtually impossible for the molecules that build living organisms but Dorothy Hodgkin was able to grow, mount the crystals and reveal their 3D atomic structure. With the relatively primitive equipment of the time, finding each structure took many years of science and engineering effort.

She was a mother with three children and worked as a scientist well into her eighties. Besides her Nobel Prize, Awards and Fellowships in 1965 she received the Order of Merit, given personally by the Queen and limited to only 24 living British Commonwealth citizens. Transforming the lives of the sick Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin was the first woman to be conferred this honour since Florence Nightingale.

- John Faulkner

ALAN FOSTER, MCLAREN AUTOMOTIVE OPERATIONS DIRECTOR NEW TRUSTEE OF SATRO

SATRO, the Guildford based educational charity, is delighted to announce the appointment of Alan Foster, McLaren Automotive Operations Director as new Trustee

Dr Beccy Bowden CEO of SATRO has announced that Alan Foster has been appointed as a SATRO Trustee.  Dr Bowden said, “We are delighted that Alan has joined the Board of SATRO – I know that his wealth of business experience will be a huge benefit to us in continuing to grow and develop our organisation. The Trustees of a small charity are very much unsung heroes – we truly could not have survived in recent years without our hard-working and knowledgeable Board."

Alan Foster commented, “Having not excelled at school and chosen an apprenticeship route, I have an affinity with SATROs vision. I was influenced by a couple of business leaders when I was young and now find myself in a position where I can hopefully light a blazing passion in people, so that they too can be supported to fulfil their true potential. I bring enthusiasm, professional business knowledge and lots of practical expertise to SATRO that will support the broad spectrum team in many aspects of their pioneering work.”

Alan Foster’s career has spanned 39-years in the international automotive manufacturing industry, with over 20 years in management, executive and board positions. The last eleven years he has been with McLaren as their Operations Director. McLaren Automotive are manufacturers of some of the world’s most advanced, fastest and most expensive high performance cars.

Alan also acts as a Brand Ambassador for McLaren Automotive and regularly hosts internal events; expanding the global awareness of the brand through interviews and videos. Alan says, “The simplistic elegance of the manufacturing systems deployed within McLaren has been referred to as “genius”. The philosophy is constructed around simple visual controls and metrics, people systems and engagement.”

Before McLaren, Alan who started as a Press Tool making Apprentice, went on to work in engineering, management and executive roles at Ford Motor Company, Toyota UK at Burnaston, and from 1997 to 2005, for General Motors in the UK, Germany and in Switzerland, where he was their Lean Consulting Group manager. Alan supplemented his work career with academic qualifications, attaining a 1st class Honours Degree in Manufacturing from Liverpool and an MBA from Cranfield. He was recently acknowledged by The Manufacturer publication as one to the Top 100 most influential people in the UK Manufacturing industry. He also holds Advisory Board positions with Liverpool Superport and ICON Aircraft.