News: Girls inspired to pursue science and engineering careers

Girls from South Yorkshire schools got to grips with Olympic sports engineering recently with Rotherham-based engineering company Performance Engineered Solutions (PES).

The company's skeleton bobsleigh challenge was part of a science and engineering day organised by Sheffield University's Outreach and Access Team, which aims to widen participation in higher education across students from all backgrounds in South Yorkshire and the surrounding regions.

PES worked with pupils to design their own skeleton bobsleighs, which they then raced in a simulator to see how effective their designs were.

Mike Maddock represented Great Britain for seven years in the Skeleton Bobsleigh event and is the managing director of PES. He now works with the Winter Olympic Great Britain Team to create cutting edge equipment for competition. Dan Fleetcroft is the Design Director of PES and has worked with the world´s top F1 and Moto GP teams. Their skeleton bobsleigh workshop has been presented to over 10,500 children worldwide and they hope to inspire the future generation of engineers.

Mike Maddock said: "It was great to have an all-girl audience to challenge the perception of engineering as a male dominated profession. The pupils immersed themselves in the interactive sessions and really took to the engineering and also the competitive element of the skeleton challenge well.

"We were keen to emphasise the importance of subject choice for pupils of their age and how important the study of maths and science is for further education. Hopefully we conveyed to the pupils that engineering is everywhere and studying it at university is definitely within their reach."

Rob Gunby, outreach assistant at Sheffield University, added: "It is great to have the chance to showcase the range of opportunities available in science and engineering, particularly to an all female group. We need more women in science and engineering, and we want to show them that engineering is not about mechanics tinkering about under cars. It's a fast paced, exciting industry where highly trained professionals get immense job satisfaction and can also earn a lot of money!"

Based on the Advanced Manufacturing Park, PES has grown out of AMP-based Bromley Technologies Ltd and specialises in enhancing the performance of components, products and systems by delivering integrated engineering thinking alongside innovative design, materials, manufacturing and testing technologies.

PES and Bromley sponsored the skeleton challenge .

PES website


Images: University of Sheffield