We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
A GROUP OF secondary students have just spent a fortnight in the lab making robots and throwing eggs off roofs, as part of a programme designed to get Irish girls interested in engineering.
The two-week summer camp had eight young women from Dublin and Wexford designing solar-powered cookers, programming LED lights, and generally getting a hands-on preview of what a career in engineering might involve.
“I wasn’t sure what we’d be doing,” said Miriam O’Callaghan from Santa Sabina Dominican College in Dublin, one of this year’s participants.
“I thought engineering was only about structures and things before I came in, but it is so much more than that. It has been a lot of fun.”
Among the gleeful experiments performed by the girls, who are all entering 5th year in the autumn, was something known as the “egg drop.”
“We had to design and build a device to get a raw egg safely to ground when thrown from the top of the building,” said Aoife O’Shea, from Our Lady’s School, Terenure.
The annual workshop, run by the school of Engineering at Trinity College Dublin, was started in 2008 to bridge the long-standing gender gap in the field of engineering in Ireland.
A 2013 report by Engineers Ireland found that “men outnumber women in the engineering profession by nine to one.”
In Ireland at present, only 26% of researchers in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) are women.
“As a profession we do a relatively poor job of this, and girls in particular tend not to consider it as a viable career path,” said Professor Kevin Kelly, who runs the programme.
However, he added that “around 70% of girls going through the programme have gone on to engineering programmes at third level, which I think suggests we are doing something right.”
One of those, third-year Trinity engineering student Iseult O’Donnell, spoke about the importance of concrete experience in attracting female students to the field.
“I was thinking about science [in school], but when I did the programme I loved the way that we didn’t just study the science stuff, but actually got to use it to create solutions to real-world problems,” she said.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Surprising lack of Edward Snowden in any of those, including the global and US results…
THIS COUNTRY HAS BEEN DESTROYED BY NATIONALIST CORRUPTION AND LOCAL THINKING.
THE HSE is a cas in point.
ITS HUMANITIES SECOND EVOLUTION TO COME TOGETHER AS ONE.
better to have a ethical technocratic elite ruling us from the center of the planet rather than the likes of school teachers from mayo.
if you really new how the human species came onto being you would understand.
we are not the only ones in this universe. before and after.
If you had all the absolutely 100 percent correct A + + + answers to the ultimate exam, would you unleash this inside information or would you choose to be original on the most important test of your life ? ? ?
we need one world governemnt. without an earth superpower how will we populate other planets..your posts are just a microcosm of the conflict between the nations of the world.
TRILLIONS AND TRILLIONS OF YEARS AGO IN THE LONG FORGOTTEN PAST, THE MIRADERS (THE GREATEST OF ALL EXTRATERRESTRIAL ALIEN CIVILIZATIONS) WERE THE FIRST ULTRA SUPER MEGA GENIUS FLESH AND BLOOD SPECIES TO RISE FROM THE ABSOLUTE DARKNESS OF THE GREAT NOTHINGNESS.
SINCE THEY WERE UNABLE TO MEET THE ULTIMATE SUPERNATURAL MAKER, THE MIRADERS DECIDED THEY WOULD ACTUALLY BECOME THE SUPREME CREATOR. TO ACHIEVE THIS NOBLE AND ATTAINABLE GOAL AND OVER THE SPAN OF COUNTLESS MILLIONS OF EONS, THE MIRADERS DEVELOPED HIGHLY AND MASSIVELY GODLIKE COMPUTER MINDS IN THE MANNER OF BRILLIANT ROBOT MACHINES, WHICH COULD CREATE EVEN MUCH, MUCH GREATER ARTIFICIAL CONSTRUCTS AS THE EVOLUTION OF INTELLIGENCE EXPLODED COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTROL. EVENTUALLY, MIRADER COULD MONITOR, RECORD AND CONTROL EVERY MICROSCOPIC PARTICLE ON THEIR PLANET AND IN THEIR LOCAL STAR SYSTEM.
Thus it is that they created us… not out of empathy but practicality. the hse does not understand tranhumanism. ray kuzweil does and only some of us – the better of us will qualify for the treatment
Amazing Morm. I finally see the light. Beam me up scotty. I’m ready.
What are you smoking?
DID YOU KNOW THAT TYPING IN BLOCK CAPS IS A SURE SIGN THAT YOU ARE A LOON AND SIGNIFICANTLY DECREASES THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE THAT WILL TAKE YOU SERIOUSLY.
I don’t believe you, nutter
I think someone was tripping on acid when this was written!
Jesus Morm you need them issues addressed and soon !!
Paul Walker, Cory Monteith, Royal Baby and Oscar Pistorious all searched more then Mandela.
I know I shouldn’t be surprised but I am
In fairness…. The Zeitgeist report was a day after Mandela died. The Journal are just reporting on it now.
have your say