Hello, my name is Sarah Hynes. I will be entering grade twelve in september at Three Oaks Senior High. Engineering has always been very appealing to me because of my love for physics and math. Now I have a chance to see if it is a good fit for me. I am very lucky and excited to be one of the eight students taking part in ProGRES at UPEI. Over the next five weeks, I will be working on encapsulating diatoms loaded with an antibiotic to create a prolonged drug release with Dr. Marya Ahmed.

The week started off with an introduction to the program and tours of the School of Sustainable Design Engineering and the UPEI campus. I met with my mentor for the first time this week and I was given reports on projects similar to mine to get a better understanding of what I will be doing and what the ultimate goal is. As a group, the eight of us completed our WHMIS training and had an introduction in Solidworks which is a computer aided design program used for 3D printing. On Tuesday afternoon, we went to visit Aspin Kemp and Associates to learn about the work they do and meet with female engineers at the company. It was interesting to hear about the type of work they do and how they have gotten to where they are today.

This week I did some more research on my project then I received my lab safety training and got started in the lab with purifying the diatoms in water. Once the diatoms were purified, I put them in ethanol and added a chemical called APTES to the diatoms. The APTES was added because it bonds easily to the surface on the diatom and makes the next steps easier than if there was no APTES present. Over the weekend, I will let it dry so I can get started on the next steps on Monday.

On top of our individual projects, we each had the opportunity to design something on solidworks that will be printed off in the 3D printer. I found solidworks difficult in the beginning but as I played around with it more and more it became easier and I managed to design a pencil holder. We also attended a couple seminars this week. The first was by Dr. David Burton on soil health and nitrogen in the soil. Then, we attended a presentation by Dr. Amy Hsaio and Dr. James Moran. Dr. Hsaio spoke about her background and the importance of engineering research. Dr. Moran spoke about his research on the history of mental illness and how it was treated in the past. On thursday, we went to Diversified Metal Engineering Ltd. to visit with a female engineer. She gave us a tour of the company and we got to see how they make vessels for brewing beer. We got to see where the engineers worked and how the design for the vessel gets passed through the different stages within the company,

This week was mostly devoted to our projects. On monday, I performed a test which showed that my reaction from last Friday was successful.This allowed me to go ahead and continue with the next stage of modification. The first time I did this step it was not successful so I repeated it on Tuesday but with less PBS to perform the reaction in. On Wednesday, I did the final reaction required for modifying the diatoms. On Thursday, I performed a test on the completely modified diatoms using the infrared spectroscopy. This test showed what bonds were present and that the final reaction was successful. This meant I could complete the last step of the process before loading drugs which is coating them in sugar. While these reactions were taking place, I got to work with the two types of drugs I will be loading into the diatoms. I made a stock solution of both curcumin, an anti-cancer drug, and naproxen, an anti-inflammatory drug, and made different solutions of each with different concentrations. In total I made six different concentrations of each drug and measured the absorbance using the UV spectrophotometry. I used this data and made graphs so that when I release the drugs from the diatoms, the absorbance can be measured.

As a group, we had three activities this week. On Tuesday, we went to Engineers PEI for lunch and we met a group of female engineers. They were all from different backgrounds and had very interesting careers in different types of engineering. On Thursday we got to use the laser-printer and etched our names on the cover of our notebooks. On Friday, we met high school students from Japan and we built wind turbines out of household items with the intention of lifting a teabag. The language barrier was not difficult to overcome as I expected it to be and the experience was so fascinating as I got to learn about Japan and successfully build a wind turbine that could lift a tea bag.

This week I loaded the drugs in the diatoms. I used the diatoms from three different stages of the experiment: unmodified diatoms, diatoms with the APTES and anhydride, and diatoms coated in sugar. To add the drugs, I took some of the drug solutions I previously made and added it to the drugs and left mixing it overnight. On Thursday, I started to monitor the drug release. Unfortunately in the first 24 hours of the release, nothing was released from the diatoms although the diatoms coated with sugar were quite surprising. Due to being left in an area that is so similar to the human body, bacteria from the air started to grow in with the diatoms. This meant I had to throw out these diatoms and could no longer study the drug release.

On Friday, we had lunch with last year’s ProGRES girls. It was interesting to hear about their experience in the program and how it has influenced what they are choosing as their undergrad and what they want to do in the future.

Week One

This week's readings were about two female engineers who are also astronauts, Julie Payette and Jennifer Sidey-Gibbons. Julie Payette has been to space twice, has multiple degrees and is currently our Governor General. I had learned a little bit about her previously in school but I had no idea how accomplished she is and the incredible things she has done. Learning about her accomplishments has made me incredibly proud to have her as the Governor General of Canada. Jennifer Sidey-Gibbons is an engineer, an astronaut, and lecturer at the University of Cambridge. She has also accomplished so much and is only thirty which makes it even more impressive. These women are amazing role models for everybody but especially young girls because they show girls that accomplishing their goals is possible like they did.

Week Two

This week we read a study on how female mentors for female students in engineering will help them gain the confidence to continue pursuing engineering. I feel this is a very important study because it shows how much we benefit from female mentors. Program such as ProGres are starting to build the confidence in girls before the university level which is very beneficial. We also watch a TED talk given by a female engineer about her new toy which was a book about a girl engineer. As the story goes along, the girl builds things throughout. The book comes with a toy version of what the character builds so that the reader can build along with the girl in the book. The creator came up with this idea because she was one of the handful of girls in her engineering classes in university and afterwards realized that toys that develop an interest in math and science are mostly marketed for boys and that is why many girls from a young age do not develop the interest for engineering. I wish there was a toy like this when I was little because it would have been something I would have enjoyed and it would have giving me an idea of what engineering is long before now.

Week Three

This week we read about the United nations goals for sustainability and how engineers can help achieve them. Their goals included ending hunger, sources of clean water for everyone, affordable and clean energy, sustainable cities, and many more. Engineers can design innovative ways that can help with these goals. They can design products such as the microgrids at AKA that can give energy to remote areas. Agricultural engineers can design ways to effectively grow crops in different areas, biomedical engineers are working to improve the medical field and multiple kinds of engineers are working on sustainable cities. Engineers will play a major role in these goals because they can help out in almost every aspect and their solutions to some goal will give solution to other problems like giving electricity and sustainable buildings to remote areas can provide jobs to the residents of the area.

We also watched a video of USA soccer star Abby Wambach giving her keynote speech to Barnard college about women being grateful for what they have but not settling for less than they deserve. This is very important because women are more likely to take what they have and not asking for what they feel they deserve because they fear they will lose what they have. I feel that this is something that every woman needs to hear because we work just as hard as men and should be recognized for it. She also gave the women four rules they should follow: Make Failure Your Fuel, Lead from the Bench, Champion Each Other and Demand the Ball. What she meant by make failure your fuel is even when you don't succeed, try again, learn from your mistakes and remember that feeling and let it power you to to move past it and hopefully succeed next time. Lead from the bench was to show them that even when you aren’t front and center, be a good role model and be an example for others even if you don’t get all the glory. Champion each other is one that I feel is very important and that means to be happy for other women’s successes and not to be jealous of them. It stuck out to me because between girls, especially at this age, there is a lot of jealousness but if we support each other, we build them up and show what women are capable of. Demand the ball also stuck out for me because it tells women to ask to be in charge and make it known when they feel they will be very beneficial like one would on the soccer field. Demand the ball when you know you can make a difference. Overall, her speech inspired me and other women to make a difference and try to live up to our full potential as leaders.

Week Four

This week we read two articles, one about emotional intelligence and one about a group of women who made a life changing device in less than a day. Emotional intelligence, EQ, relates to your soft skills and how you interact with others. The article talked about how you can grow your emotional intelligence and it can improve with time. In the workplace, the majority of place employees have a very high emotional intelligence and it can increase your pay. Emotional intelligence as an engineer is very important because you are constantly working with others to get the job done. The other article is about 6 engineering students and the device they made that that translates text in to braille. It was inspiring to see a group of girls make something that could change the world and that is something I hope to do in the future. Finally, we watched a video of JK Rowling's speech to Harvard's graduating class on how important imagination is. As an engineer, you are always creating something new, little changes to make here and there and that all comes from your imagination. Rowling also spoke about failure and how it is different for everyone but it will only make you work harder for what you want. this relates to engineering because sometimes your idea won't work the first time but it makes you want to work harder for it because you want to see it be a success.