We were delighted to welcome a group from the Bournemouth School for Girls (BSG) Robotics Club to our headquarters on Monday 18th November. The group, who are part of the UK’s largest all girls robotics club, included five girls who represented the UK at the FIRST Global Challenge competition in Athens in September.
Competing against nearly 200 teams from around the world, team Ultraviolet from BSG achieved several firsts at the competition with their robot ‘Chimera’. They were the first ever all girls team from the UK and the first UK team to receive an individual award. They were given the ‘Katherine Johnson Award for Engineering Documentation’, in recognition of their thorough work in recording Chimera’s design and production. They had developed the robot over nine months before a UK competition in June – which they won – and then had a further nine weeks to prepare for Athens – where they won eight out of their eleven matches.
Recognising the importance of encouraging young women into engineering careers, our HR department invited the girls to spend the day at our Blackbushe facility. After demonstrating their robot to Sonardyne staff, they were given a tour of the manufacturing, test, and production facilities before meeting Managing Director Graham Brown and some key female figures within the business.
Sonardyne recruitment specialist, Claire Bennett said, “It was our absolute pleasure to welcome these young ladies to Sonardyne. Their enthusiasm for everything they saw and heard was amazing. We are dedicated to encouraging young people into engineering careers to bring in fresh, innovative ideas and ensure the future of the industry. We hope they enjoyed their visit as much as we enjoyed hosting them!”Before they left, team Ultraviolet were presented with £1000 by Graham Brown to help fund their future robotic development and competitions. We look forward to hearing of their progress and maybe welcome them again as engineers in the future.
