Monika Tranova - Summer STEM Work Placement Student - Weekly Reports

Work experience is great and it provides students with many benefits whilst gaining skills and helping choose the right future career path for pupils. Having work experience on a Curriculum Vitae will make a person stand out to employers as they will notice they have motivation and a real passion for work. It will also help to boost a students confidence in themselves! 

The STEM placement students are sending us weekly blogs all about their experience in the world of work! 

See how Monika is getting on with her STEM placement! 

Week One

"KBC is an engineering consulting company that mainly focuses on the oil refining industry. I was introduced to the main points of the refinery business and how it works. I started working on a simulation software by KBC called Petro-Sim. I talked to an engineer who talked to me about RAM and mechanical engineering and where it is heading. I attended meetings where current and future projects were discussed. I talked to many people from the engineering team to know what they were working on and see what kind of work they are doing." 

- Monika Tranova 

Peter Boardman - Summer STEM Work Placement Student - Weekly Reports

The STEM placement students are sending us weekly blogs all about their experience in the world of work! 

Work experience is great and it provides students with many benefits whilst gaining skills and helping choose the right future career path for pupils. Having work experience on a Curriculum Vitae will make a person stand out to employers as they will notice they have motivation and a real passion for work. It will also help to boost a students confidence in themselves! 


                                 See how Peter is getting on with his STEM placement! 

Week One 

"I am currently completing a SATRO work experience placement at St George's University London. The placement is based around cardiac research - looking at Brugada Syndrome in particular. 

Arriving through the door at St George's, I was confronted with the "Rat Maze" of corridors, as it is affectionately called in the university. However, within a couple of days, I had found my sense of direction! 

In order to understand the cardiac research I would be involved with, I first had to learn some new terms, including "epicardium" and "adipocytes". Over the week, I have: prepared tissue blocks, scanned microscope slides, seen clinical practice, and helped to complete an immunohistochemistry protocol. 

I look forward to next week - when I will get to see an electron microscope!" 


Week Two 

"Arriving on Monday for my second week of work experience, I was starting to feel more confident in the knowledge of the heart. In order to understand Brugada Syndrome (the heart condition I am helping to investigate), I have had to learn some electrophysiology, cellular biology, biochemistry and anatomy - bringing together Biology, Chemistry and Physics! 

However - putting this new knowledge into practice with heart dissections, immunohistochemistry and microscopy has been the most exciting part of the placement! I have also seen patients undertake echocardiograms, and electrocardiograms (ECGs) in clinical practice.

Today, I am going to see the University's electron microscope - which is the tool used to take all the photographs in my textbook. I look forward to helping Dr Chris Miles (my placement supervisor) write up his research next week." 

Week Three 

"My third week at St George's University has been an opportunity to consolidate the new information I have learned, by creating a presentation to Professor Mary Sheppard - a world leading pathologist. This presentation was about "The Morphologically Normal Heart." 

The most interesting thing I discovered while researching, was that cardiac cells are differentially terminated, meaning they never divide again once formed. This causes cancer of the heart to be exceedingly rare, as without cell division, the chances of a mutation are far reduced. It also implies that the cells in your heart at the end of puberty are the same throughout your whole life. 

Outside of the presentation, I discovered how ECG traces are formed, saw several echo cardiograms, and had another opportunity to witness heart dissections. I have certainly decided to take better care of my heart's health, as a result of the past three weeks!" 

Week Four 

"My final week of work experience was centered around writing up the research and results we had helped our supervisor (Dr Chris Miles) obtain. This was mainly done using Microsoft Excel - which is a far more powerful software tool than I had initially appreciated. 

Nevertheless, we were still able to see many interesting things in the hospital - providing a needed break from sitting in front of computers! We spent two sessions in clinical practice: one in cardiology outpatients, and the other seeing an ajmaline test. Ajmaline is a drug used to stress the heart, allowing certain diagnostic ECG patterns to potentially arise. 

The highlight of my week was having a second opportunity to use the university's electron microscope (see photo below). I was slightly apprehensive about using a £250,000 piece of equipment, however, it turns out to be quite easy to operate. Not only was I able to see different cell organelles, and see how electron microscope slides are stained, but also see how the photos in my biology textbook are taken! 

Overall, the past four weeks have been incredibly useful, helping me make my choices for higher education, and boosting my confidence. I would 100% recommend a SATRO placement for anybody interested in a science related degree!" 

- Peter Boardman 

Inspiring Young People Into STEM - Why Is It Important?

About Lynn Willacy

Organisation: Air Products 

Profession: Community & STEM Ambassador 

About Lynn: Lynn joined Air Products in May 2000. Now, as the Community and STEM Ambassador, Lynn leads programmes supporting STEM engagement. Being an advocate of diversity and inclusion, Lynn has been featured in the media discussing the skills shortage and how to encourage students to consider a STEM career. 

Organisation's LinkedIn: Air Products 
Organisation's Twitter: @airproductsuki


Tell us why you think it is important in today's world, to inspire young people into STEM and where applicable, why you and or your organisation gets involved and what you get out of it. 

"Air Products is a world leading industrial gas company. The Community & STEM Ambassador for the UK, Lynn Willacy, sees her role as getting young children - from primary school to university - excited about Science and Engineering, ultimately encouraging them to choose a STEM career, and inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers.

In doing this, we also address the need to encourage more women to study engineering; showing girls of all ages that engineering is not just for boys. 

Our network of ambassadors - volunteers from across our business - talk more about the gas industry and Air Products - includes a strong representation of females. 

With this programme we go into schools, free of charge, to do liquid nitrogen demonstrations and talk about Air Products - teaching the children about how gases impact on everyday life. 

This is done on an age-specific basis - some of our ambassadors will go into primary schools while some of our chemical engineers and more technical people will visit secondary schools and colleges. 

Although thrilling experiments have proved an excellent way to get more young people interested in a career in the industry - many of the initiatives Lynn has championed go much more in depth and explain to students the career options available to them. 

At Air Products, we believe that by addressing the gender imbalance, we can tackle the skills gap too. We do this by attending careers fairs to share the opportunities Air Products can offer and hold interview days to help students with specific employability skills. 

We also work with external organisations on specific projects. Colleagues from our Hersham office and some retirees have volunteered and supported the SATRO events for many years. Our links with SATRO have included the sponsorship of TeenTech, Problem Solving Challenges and the World of Energy activity." 


In relation to the above question, in your experience, what is getting better or worse and what in your view, are the barriers to sustained success and what do you see as the best way forward? 

"As we are moving towards a more digital and technology driven age, where young people are using technology in everyday life, the focus on supporting the need for STEM careers is more important than ever. 

However, what we need to ensure is that all skills continue to be represented, not just the technical skills that a student may find exciting, but those like communication and teamwork that are essential to a successful career. By working with SATRO, we are supporting a broad range of initiatives so that students fully understand the breadth of a STEM career. This type of partnership and the initiatives being undertaken are positive steps towards increasing the uptake of STEM subjects. 

The introduction of Gatsby Benchmarks within schools will encourage teachers to engage with employers more regularly, create relationships between education and industry, enable knowledge sharing and build awareness of career opportunities within STEM." 

- Lynn Willacy, Air Products 

Ishaan Ghatak - Summer STEM Work Placement Student - Weekly Reports

The STEM placement students are sending us weekly blogs all about their experience in the world of work! 

Work experience is great and it provides students with many benefits whilst gaining skills and helping choose the right future career path for pupils. Having work experience on a Curriculum Vitae will make a person stand out to employers as they will notice they have motivation and a real passion for work. It will also help to boost a students confidence in themselves! 

See how Ishaan is getting on with their STEM placement! 

Week One 

"In the first week of my SATRO research placement at WSP, I was able to find lots of information and online resources pertaining to the aim of my project. These include news articles, parliamentary records, academic publications, and reports from WSP. I have also learned about various aspects of engineering consultancy and professional life, such as Health and Safety, GDPR regulations, and being future ready. 

Furthermore, I attended a technical meeting with the highways team where we watched an informational training video on highway geometry for horizontal curves on motorways. Following the video, the team discussed topics including the design life of roads considering the development and production of autonomous vehicles in the near future. Next week, I will continue with research, but my main focus will shift to developing thorough solutions. Hence, I have a call scheduled with an engineer who has worked on traffic modelling in the area I am focusing on as he would be able to provide me with insights that could help me develop original solutions to the issue at hand." 

Week Two

"My second week at WSP began with a meeting with the technical director of transport modelling, who kindly provided me with several insights for my project. I was able to ask him questions regarding both the process of theoretical traffic modelling, as well as how it was applied in real life in the Port of Dover and M20 motorway. Furthermore, he advised me on how firms and engineering consultants must consider economics, deadlines, and feasibility of solutions when it comes to developing reports for clients. 

For the rest of the week, I continued working on my report and the specifics of my proposed schemes. In order to stay organised and on schedule, I have started using a timetable for daily tasks, as well as a Gantt chart for an overall view of my progress on the project." 

Week Three 

"In my third and final week, I was mainly focused on thoroughly developing potential solutions for my research project. This involved conducting more specific research, report writing, and technical development. Furthermore, for advise and checking the feasibility of my proposed schemes, I asked members of the highways engineering department for their help and guidance. Also, I have found that the organisational tools that I have been using (Gantt charts and timetables) are quite effective measures for being productive and staying on task. 

In addition to my research, I also learned a lot about university and career paths, as well as how engineers in various disciplines can acquire a chartered status to receive recognition of their competence and experience. 

Overall, my work experience at WSP was quite insightful for me as I was able to learn about the professional life of engineering consultants. Moreover, I got to work on an interesting and meaningful research project which showed me how valuable STEM is to society and the world." 

- Ishaan Ghatak 

André Dale - Summer STEM Work Placement Student - Weekly Reports

The STEM placement students are sending us weekly blogs all about their experience in the world of work! 

Work experience is great and it provides students with many benefits whilst gaining skills and helping choose the right future career path for pupils. Having work experience on a Curriculum Vitae will make a person stand out to employers as they will notice they have motivation and a real passion for work. It will also help to boost a students confidence in themselves! 


                        See how André is getting on with their STEM placement! 

Week One

"This first week has been about orientation, working out how to get from home to the University of Surrey (a three hour round trip if the trains are running on time), meeting my supervisors and learning the core Physics involved in my project, which I will be starting next week. I've also been learning the basics of Silvaco's simulation software and how it might be applied to the project. 

Overall, it's been a challenging, but interesting first week." 


Week Two

"This second week has been more interesting than the previous week. I have started working on the code relating to my project, creating the circuit which I will be simulating using SPICE (a circuit simulation software). There have been several problems and I have been using the Silvaco Atlas User Manual to try and fix the errors in my code. By the end of Friday, the program was working and so next week, I will be carrying out simulations on Pixel Driving Circuits." 

Week Three 

"Contrary to what I said last week, I've still been writing the code for my simulation. The program works fine when I use some of the Silvaco example structures, but since I'm not using these for my project, I have had to create my own structures.

This week, I have built a MOSFET and an SGT in Silvaco DeckBuild and I have been trying to incorporate them into the main simulation program which I made last week. I should be finished with this by the end of Monday next week." 

- André Dale

A Kibble Balance at the National Physical Laboratory by Guest Blogger John Faulkner

A Kibble Balance at the National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, Surrey

In 1972, a scientist working at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington Surrey invented an instrument now known as the Kibble Balance. The purpose of Dr Kibbles balance was to resolve a growing problem facing metrology (the science of measurement). 

The modern world was in need of an agreed standard to measure mass to the highest possible precision and be universally available.

Until 16th November 2018, the world standard mass was a kilogram weight stored at the International Bureau for Weights and Measures in Paris. Copies of this mass in different countries were deteriorating and diverging in value over time. The standard was inconsistent. 

The Kibble balance uses an electromagnet to hold a weight in equilibrium. The electromagnet current is adjusted to counterbalance the force of gravity that attracts the mass of the weight down. Once balanced two high precision measurements are taken from the electromagnet, the electric current and its magnetic field. The results are then used to calculate the value of the mass. The equation makes use of some naturally occurring physical constants to produce a result. In the case of the balance, one of the constants is - Planks Constant, that is used in atomic theory known as Quantum Physics. 

Following measurement, if the calculation results in Planks Constant then the measured Mass is 1 kilogram. On World Metrology Day 16th November 2018 an internationally agreed value for Planks Constant was confirmed and so the Kibble Balance could be used to define a kilogram. 

The original mass in Paris and it's copies are now historical objects. 

Metrology uses The International System of Units (SI). 

There are seven base units to measure things: length-metre (m), mass-kilogram (kg), time-second (s), temperature-kelvin (K), electric current - ampere (A), amount of a substance - mole (mol) and luminous intensity of light-candela (cd).

- John Faulkner 

Seyi Paul - Summer STEM Work Placement Student - Weekly Reports

The STEM placement students are sending us weekly blogs all about their experience in the world of work!

 

Work experience is great and it provides students with many benefits whilst gaining skills and helping choose the right future career path for pupils. Having work experience on a Curriculum Vitae will make a person stand out to employers as they will notice they have motivation and a real passion for work. It will also help to boost a students confidence in themselves! 

See how Seyi is getting on with their STEM placement! 

Week One 

"During the first week of my experience, I learnt how to transfer data from their electronic report on PIMS onto data points on to Google Earth pro. During this process, I was able to gain an insight into the type of projects the organisation performs; such as Geo-Environmental and Geotechnical Interpretive reports; site specific risk assessment and remediation method statements and much more. 

To follow, I transfered GIS layers from the data government archive/data publisher such as flood areas, LIDAR and mining data and others onto the QGIS system, although, I had to make sure the files were 'WMS' (web mapping services) to ensure the data contained within the GIS system is up-to-data as these file types are automatically updated when new data is found. 

After all this data was inserted into GIS, my next task was to move all the data that was held on Google Earth pro onto GIS as this couldn't be done directly from the spreadsheet data using the prior system. This meant I had to download the Google Earth data as a KML as this represents geospatial data. 

Lastly, I formatted the KML files after they were added to the GIS to be acquired and used easily by altering their properties to fit with the style of Google Earth by making the data easily differentiable by making their visual properties distinct. 

Next week, my task would be to research and find a means to transfer data from the spreadsheet directly to our in-house GIS system." 

Week Two

"I had the opportunity to do some research this week as I was assigned the task of moving our spreadsheet data directly onto QGIS. The main problem I encountered was that it was difficult to find manuals on how to use various functions and plugins and means of data transfer, I found out I was able to convert my excel file into a CSV (Comma-Separated Variable); which then can be uploaded onto the QGIS system as a delimited text layer. Although, in order to allow my spreadsheet data to interact with existing base maps, I needed to manually add Easting-Northing co-ordinates onto their data. Thus, after this was completed, the job locator would directly place jobs from the spreadsheet and plot their precise location onto QGIS. 

The next task I was assigned by Tom - who is in charge of the CAD drawings - was to create a template for each type of site layout figure types on QGIS. On QGIS, these exist as a report and would enable the engineers to access drawings made for each site layout directly on QGIS. I had to follow the formatting used in previous jobs to maintain consistency when they create their reports."

Week Three

"I started off this week by working on a geo-environmental project in CGL. My first task was to read into what the CLEA model was, which is the Contaminated Land Environmental Agency. This model is a spreadsheet-based application used to estimate exposure to chemicals from soil onto humans on the land. My job was to create a parameter that focuses on school buildings. Whilst doing this, I had to research relevant parameters and their corresponding values; as well as looking at existing parameters and using intuition based off other building type data. To fill in values. After all parameter values were filled, I looked at the risk of a range of chemical compounds found in the soil, and how different concentrations found in a particular soil type – in our case, sandy loam – would cause harm to soil inhabitants."

- Seyi Paul 

Seung Joo Yang - Summer STEM Work Placement Student - Weekly Reports

The STEM placement students are sending us weekly blogs all about their experience in the world of work! 


Work experience is great and it provides students with many benefits whilst gaining skills and helping choose the right future career path for pupils. Having work experience on a Curriculum Vitae will make a person stand out to employers as they will notice they have motivation and and a real passion for work. It will also help to boost a students confidence in themselves! 

See how Seung Joo is getting on with their STEM placement! 

Week One 

"On the first day, we went through induction. First impression of the company was that it was bigger than I thought it was. It had many different departments, all related to civil engineering. The next few days we were taken to different departments like railways, highways and geotech. We learnt about what they do in those departments and some insight to the projects they are working on at the moment. It was a great experience of an engineering company and I could see myself in an environment like this as an engineer working with other engineers on a single project." 

- Seung Joo Yang

Inspiring Young People Into STEM - Why Is It Important?

About Cathy Thompson: 

Profession: Qualified Careers Adviser 

About Cathy: Semi-retired, but still providing regular careers guidance to students at St Peter's Catholic School and involved in career development work at a national level. Was the Careers Lead at St Peter's for 8 years. Won a UK Career Development award in 2013 for our work engaging with employers, and a SATRO STEMX Award in 2017 for our work inspiring students to consider STEM careers. My careers provision was described as 'exceptional' by OFSTED in 2013 and our school maintains (with 2 re-accreditations so far) the Quality in Careers Standard. Have been invited to speak at a number of Conferences. 

Cathy's Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cathy-thompson-65310656/


Tell us why you think it is important in today's world, to inspire young people into STEM and where applicable, why you and or your organisation gets involved and what you get out of it. 
We all recognise that school students initially, generally know about only a few job sectors (namely medicine, law and media!) and therefore it is our responsibility as careers advisers to ensure that we sign-post students to the wealth of other opportunities available to them in other sectors, and especially STEM-related. If we don't do this, where are these young people going to hear about these, which could significantly impact what subjects they are studying and what qualifications they need? Also, with the impending huge gaps in digital skills and other STEM areas, we need to inform the students about labour market information so that they can make informed decisions about their future choices. 
At St Peter's, we invite into school and visit a total of about 200 employers and organisations a year, so that students can explore what's on offer, and hear first-hand from people who are currently 'doing the job' out in the world of work. Of these employers, a high percentage are working in STEM posts. I think the first thing that intrigues students is the vast range of jobs and sectors which involve/use Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths, including many of the 'arts' areas! Our students have found out about some very interesting STEM careers, including a clinical researcher, an architect, a sound engineer and designer, a civil engineer, a mechanical engineer, a medical scanners ops manager, a drilling engineer from BP, a doctor, an occupational therapist, a pilot, a telecoms engineer and a molecular virologist.  We work with SATRO, STEMNet (now STEM Sussex), the University of Surrey, past St Peter’s students (recent and those who have now worked for many years in STEM careers), our school parents, STEM-related apprenticeship providers, Inspiring the Future, Speakers for Schools.   Many of the STEM ambassadors/businesses we work with are women.  In fact, on our STEM networking activity, one year, all our engineers etc. were women!  We need to break stereotypes and encourage more female students to consider some of the great opportunities to work in STEM.

The benefit of these types of activities is well-informed students who can choose relevant courses and routes for their aspirations.  Whilst talking about routes, it is important also that students know that apprenticeships are becoming a truly viable alternative to university for some professional careers, with an increase in higher level, and in some cases, degree apprenticeships becoming more available.  Indeed, many employers are preferring this route, where they can ‘grow their own’ staff.   With degree apprenticeships becoming available in aerospace, architecture, nursing, and actuarial roles, for example, there is a conscious swing in the labour market to recruiting for these types of routes as opposed to recruiting graduates.

In relation to the above question, in your experience, what is getting better or worse and what in your view, are the barriers to sustained success and what do you see as the best way forward? 

Definitely ‘what is getting better’ is the range of STEM jobs on offer for our young people now!    Identifying the skill gaps has triggered an increase in opportunities for our students to ‘try out’ these types of careers on ‘Insight Days’, webinars and other kinds of work shadowing and work experience.  This said, some of these are very competitive and only open to students with relevant qualifications, though the climate is changing somewhat, providing wider access for students who may not possess the qualifications, but do have the personal qualities/employability skills which businesses are looking for.  This is also helping social mobility. 

‘What is getting worse’ is where to find all these opportunities, and to make sure that students don’t miss them!  There are a number of good sites which students can visit initially, to explore the types of opportunities available, like apprenticeships.org, graduate-jobs.com, studentladder, but often, the onus is on the student to do some in-depth research on employer sites to explore the range of opportunities available to them.

In my opinion, the barriers to sustained success in informing students about STEM-related work is two-fold: ensuring that schools have the resources to forge important links with their local labour market and further afield, and ensuring that businesses are not swamped (as some currently are) with requests from students to do work experience, which often is requested for the term of a whole week or longer.

More opportunities for students to do short-term (a day or two) of work shadowing/work experience, and encouraging SMEs to participate in these is, I believe the way forward.  An important part of this is the activities which SATRO provide for our students, to sample and explore STEM roles and develop the skills required for these jobs.  They provide great experiences and SATRO offer opportunities for individual students, groups or whole year groups!  Our school has participated in these over a number of years now, hosting their sixth form Maths Challenge, and this year, Year 8 Construction Challenge (open to all local schools), booking their Business Game each year to help our Year 10 students to develop important entrepreneurial skills, and attending Teentech.  SATRO have provided mentors and placements for our students over the past years, helping to inspire students and advise them about STEM-related careers.

Working in partnership with our local businesses and organisations, including SATRO is the way forward.  School staff invariably have few hours allocated to them to provide such important experiences, so should welcome any help they may be offered! 

I am optimistic that if we provide these types of opportunities, we will help to address the STEM skills gaps and hopefully inspire our young people with an exciting future in front of them.

- Cathy Thompson

Inspiring Young People Into STEM - Why Is It Important?

About Dr Elaine Hickmott

Profession: Independent Talent Development Specialist 

About Elaine: Love STEM, learning and being creative. Through my consultancy I help people invest in their professional and career development. My adventure began with a PhD in Chemistry followed by experience as an industrial chemist and working in corporate business leadership roles. I've happily gone from boiler-suit to boardroom and beyond. 

Elaine's Twitter Handle - @ElaineHickmott 

Tell us why you think it is important in today's world, to inspire young people into STEM and where applicable, why you and or your organisation gets involved and what you get out of it. 

"When I started to write this piece I hit a block.  I have lots to say about STEM talent and its global importance but I just wasn’t feeling it.  All I could hear in my head was, “blah, blah, blah!”

So I took a mental step back.  Forget stagnant statistics and pipeline predictions; this had to be personal. 

I let my mind wander and imagined being reunited with my 16-year old self.  What would I say to her?

The answer is quite simply, “Thank you!”

Choosing to do three science A-levels all those years ago was an inspired move.  Not because I had a burning desire to become a Nobel prize-winning scientist or a globe-trotting engineer.  Because I somehow recognised a STEM-based education (though we didn’t call it that in the olden days) would be a powerful platform for building a successful career.

I didn’t have aspirations to change the world.  And I didn’t know any scientists or engineers.  My logic was straightforward...following the science path, although challenging for me (I was definitely better at languages), would be more likely to lead to better jobs.  Plus, I could come back to the other stuff later.

And guess what, I was right.

Starting with a foundation of science has helped me build a rewarding and varied career while making a difference along the way.  It helped me go from boiler-suit to boardroom; chemistry to colostomy bags; bullet proof vests to blast furnaces... and beyond.

Jump forward to present day and into the future, STEM is a thread which unites us all.  It’s everywhere every day.  In fact, it is so embedded in our lives that now, more than ever before, being switched onto STEM is definitely a launch pad for many amazing adventures."

In relation to the above question, in your experience, what is getting better or worse and what in your view, are the barriers to sustained success and what do you see as the best way forward? 

"Inspiration is a personal thing and where it comes from is unpredictable and often random.  Exposure to rich and varied experiences definitely increases the chances of those sparks and marvellous ‘aha’ moments.  This is true of life and it’s certainly true in relation to STEM.

Fortunately, over recent years there has been a marked increase in STEM-related experiences for young people.  Many of them involve interaction with real people who bring the human element needed for accessibility and engagement.

Young people interacting as equals with others outside of usual school, family and peer groups; getting involved with new STEM-related experiences help to generate a positive energy.  A positive vibe which helps create a fertile ground for inspiration to strike.  It’s brilliant. 

But... Yes, you knew there was a ‘but’ coming! 

My personal perspective is that there is a challenge linked to context.

STEM is a big picture subject.  It’s not just about becoming scientist x or engineer y.  For example, if you watch a recent episode of the BBC’s Supermarket Secrets, it perfectly demonstrates the breadth and power of STEM in one sector alone.  And it shows that harnessing the power of STEM is not only about becoming a scientist or engineer.

Artificial intelligence being used to monitor customer behaviour while still upholding data protection rules.  Think feet.  Virtual reality taking the place of marketing focus groups.  Cauliflower waste being turned into a sustainable material for keeping vegetables fresh.  The circular economy in action.

Giving a wider context of where a STEM education might lead could actually act like a mini Trojan horse.  Reaching and resonating with young people in a different way.  Ultimately creating those unexpected sparks of inspiration which help people to set off on their own personal STEM adventures."

- Dr Elaine Hickmott 

Benedikt Schultes - Summer STEM Work Placement Student - Weekly Reports

The STEM placement students are sending us weekly blogs all about their experience in the world of work! 

Work experience is great and it provides students with many benefits whilst gaining skills and helping choose the right future career path for pupils. Having work experience on a Curriculum Vitae will make a person stand out to employers as they will notice they have motivation and a real passion for work. It will also help to boost a students confidence in themselves!

                                         

                                          See how Benedikt is getting on with his STEM placement! 

Week One

"I have already learnt a great deal about microelectronics in the few days that I have spent at the University of Surrey so far. Dr Radu Sporea and his PhD student, Eva Bestelink are both extremely kind and helpful in the placement. Eva has quickly taught me all I have to know about thin film transistors (TFT), source-gated transistors (SGT), amplifiers, circuits, and the physics behind these devices, as well as how to program them into SILVACO DeckBuild and TonyPlot using ATLAS and SPICE. I started by building a simple TFT and analysed its source and gate voltages and progressed onto analysing the output characteristics of SGTs, or running circuits and analysing their current-voltage characteristics through the transient piecewise linear method. I have gotten many research materials as well as a student card (giving me access to the university library), so I have more than enough resources to learn from and write my report. I cannot wait to start the actual research part of the project soon, now that we have covered all the required knowledge. Both Radu and Eva are impressed with the progress I have made and we are in a good position to progress very soon. Finally, I also got some time to work on a fun little side project, where I have to build a circuit and solder the components together to make and LED dice." 

Week Two

"My supervisors Radu and Eva were away on a conference in Spain for a few days this week, which meant that I got some reading and research to do at home to prepare for the 'actual' work that lay ahead. I felt very ready after the few days just revising and learning from home, as there was a lot of interesting content covered in the first week which I now grasped fully and was eager to start the research part of the placement. At the end of the week, we started by analysing the transfer and output characteristics of an enhancement mode and a depletion mode SGT. I faced quite a few challenges with the depletion mode SGT, as it is supposed to be normally on a device, meaning that there is always current flowing through it, however, there was a problem with the doping in the code, and it took a while until we had identified what it was and got the code working again. Once we were happy with the two devices, we were able to plug them into the circuit and analyse the DC characteristics, showing that the devices were very good at amplifying signals." 

Week Three 

"This week was very challenging. We started off by testing a control device that we can later compare to the new device and see if the improvement that we expect is really there. This was also important to check all the code and make sure that everything is working so that we can test the new device as best as possible. Both the DC and AC analysis involved a lot of troubleshooting, and nothing worked out the way we wanted it to at first. In the end, there was a short line of code in the DC analysis which was not supposed to be there and had severely affected our results, and we were using values that were off by only 0.01 in the AC analysis, which changed the output from 200 to 20000, or more. I learnt a lot about what its like to do proper research this week, and how you have to always stay focused, creative and work well in a team in order to solve the challenges that you face, otherwise it will be much harder to solve them." 

Week Four 

"This was my last week at the University of Surrey, and it was definitely the most interesting because we started getting some results. The week was mostly running simulations in the background, while I plotted data from the previous simulations. We found very high gain in some devices, and more linear behaviour in other, which is what we were looking for. 

We tested many different amplifier circuit configurations and devices, leading to different and interesting results. Finally, we ran the simulations in SILVACO, but plotted the graphs in Origin, because it was much better for processing data that way. Although we did not entirely find what we were looking for yet, I am really glad to have been a part of the foundational research for this project, and I'm excited to hear about where it will go next, and will definitely stay in touch with Radu and Eva. I loved my SATRO experience, and would definitely recommend it further."

- Benedikt Schultes