Engineering Week – 8th March – Cubs

It is Engineering week and also International Womens Day today 8th of March !

A great video from NASA – What is Engineering

We talked about some Famous Engineers and some who happened to be Scouts!

• Martha Jane Coston was an American inventor and businesswoman who invented the Coston flare, a device for signaling at sea, and the owner of the Coston Manufacturing Company
• Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-born American actress, inventor, and film producer. She appeared in 30 films over a 28-year career and co-invented an early version of frequency-hopping spread spectrum communication for torpedo guidance
• Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman who has been described as America’s greatest inventor. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures.
• Henry Ford was an American industrialist and business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production.

And some that were/are Scouts !

• Neil Armstrong, astronaut and first man to walk on the moon 
• Buzz Aldrin, second man to walk on the moon
• Sally Ride – The first American woman in space started out as a Scout and went on to inspire millions of girls to take an interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) careers.
• Thomas Cech, chemist who received 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
• Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of the modern television
• Jim Lovell, astronaut who was commander of Apollo 13 mission 
• William Moerner, physicist who received 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry 
• Linda Mongey , Engineer & Scouter Extraordinaire !
• Laura Healy , Engineer – Horology + Electronics & Outstanding Scouter  !

You will noticed we have 2 Scouters on the list ! Linda and Laura spoke about their Engineering experiences.

Linda

Linda told us about Bio Medical Engineering , working in a Company that made Breathing machines for Hospitals and in particular “ventilators” for premature ( born early ! ) babies. She also told us about a company where she worked and they manufactured machines that interacted with body signals , to either suppress pain or in Astronauts to help them keep muscles working when in space !

Laura

Laura explained all about Horology & Electronics, she studied the design of mechanical and digital watches – only 10 per year graduated in Ireland! She also worked on design of various watches and their clasps – not many companies in Ireland make watches.

Sarah showed the Cubs and Amazing feat of Engineering , not only is it amazing to see a Wind Turbine in action , but this was a Wind Turbine getting put together !

We has asked the Cubs to get the following together:

• Scissors
• A pencil with an intact eraser/rubber at the end)
• 1 thumbtack/drawing pin
• A4 Paper (2 pieces)
• A ruler
• A pencil
• Glue stick / Glue
• Small piece of card

While we were online , we made a Wind Turbine !

One of our Cubs made this amazing Windmill !