Megan
Hello
My name's Megan Smith. I am one of the students taking part in the ProGRES 2018 summer program. I am 16 years old and am going into grade 11 at Three Oaks Senior High in September. I applied for this program because I am interested in biomedical engineering and I thought this would be a good experience. I hope to eventually go to med school. I will be working with Dr Aitazaz Farooque on a project related to precision agriculture and the different methods of irrigation to potatoes farms on Prince Edward Island.
Week 1 Summary
We are currently taking part in the first week activities. This week included a campus tour, WHMIS training, a field trip to Aspin Kemp and Associates, an introduction to CAD, and involved us doing preliminary research for our project. It is very helpful to have other girls to bounce ideas off of and to help me when I am confused. I am eager to dive deeper into my project and to learn more about using Solidworks (CAD program).
Week 1 Reading Reflection
Julie Payette
The reading about Julie Payette was so inspirational. It is cool that she has done so much during her lifetime. She seems like such a good role model for young girls. I am proud that she is our governor general.
Dr. Jennifer (Jenni) Anne MacKinnon Sidey-Gibbons
The reading about Dr. Jennifer (Jenni) Anne MacKinnon Sidey-Gibbons was so cool. I love that there is women engineers out there that are making a difference. It is also so cool that she is only 30. She has accomplished so much in her life.
Week 2
Week 2 was when when we really got to dive into our research. I had to write a report on precision agriculture and the different kinds of irrigation, which took me a couple of days. I ended up learning a lot also about how to manage my time to get everything done. I also got to use solidworks and finish up my design that I had been working on. I am in gymnastics, so I decided to make a beam, which is one of the events in women's artistic gymnastics. On Tuesday, we got to go and listen to a seminar by Dr David Burton. That was very interesting because his seminar was about agriculture and soil health and my project is related to agriculture. On Wednesday, we got to listen in on a presentation by Amy Hsiao about going into research that she presented to some of the students here. On Thursday, we went to DME, Diversified Metal Engineering, to see how the engineers there work and to see some of the collaborative environments that have become a common theme in the engineering field.
Thank you to Nancy for giving us a tour at DME and telling us what it is like to work as an engineer there. (left)
Everyone's design on SolidWorks turned out really well. Mine is the one that's orange. (right)
Week 2 Reading Reflections
After watching the Ted Talk about getting women into engineering, I had to take some time to self reflect. This video was so inspiring and I am so glad that Debbie, the creator of GoldieBlox, didn’t give up on trying to create a engineering toy for girls. When I think back to my childhood, I am so thankful that my parents never enforced gender specific toys on me. My parents one day brought home this big bucket of old lego that I could create anything with. I truly believe that young girls around the world would benefit from having options for the toys they want.
The second reading was also very interesting. It talked about the benefits that having a woman mentor or champion can be for a female student. I think this article is very relatable, because in today's age, the science field is dominated by men. My favorite part of the article was when they explained that a woman mentor is not better because they offer emotional support, but because they can become a role model in a way that men can’t. It can show a female student that they can do it because there mentor did it.