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Eng Songs MEGAMIX #2

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What’s better than music? Seriously though. You can’t think of anything! Well, maybe love, but can you dance to love? Here’s a bunch of tunes to inspire, inform, and act as soundtrack in Eng World!

Mary Kwiatkowski and Elizabeth Hilstrom – The Engineer Song


“This song is really funny and creative.”

Final Thought – Into My Hands


“The lead singer and guitarist, Dustin Dopsa, studies Biomedical Engineering at Ryerson. How cool is that!”

Barenaked Ladies – Big Bang Theory Theme


“BIG BANG THEORY = FAVOURITE SUPER FAST CATCHY SCIENCE TUNE”

Kate Bush – Pi


This song has a nice beat even though it isn’t written about the most exciting topic.

The Element Song


“This will be stuck in my head forever”

The NEW Periodic Table Song


“This is a song about the periodic table in chemistry. I really like this song because it helped me memorize the elements and because since it has a catchy beat you will always remember it.”

Thrift Shop Parody – This is Engineering


“Engineering with a twist!”

Rocket Man – Elton John


“I wish people would understand today how hard astronauts, scientists and engineers have to work”

AGHS Lab Safety Rap


“So much better than the safety video I had to watch in class. Please make a second one with more stuff!!!”

Shaina Dinsdale

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Q&A WITH EngHERO: Shaina Dinsdale

Shaina is an amazing engineer who has traveled the world and is full of wisdom. She has been in many occupations, in diverse regions of the world in search of the perfect occupation to satisfy her happiness, success and her values. Shaina Dinsdale

Q: What’s one thing you wish you knew about engineering back when you were in high school?

I wish I knew what it was all about. I have three older brothers who are all in engineering and I thought it was about building cars and airplanes. When I finally got around to doing it I loved it. The degree didn’t mean that now I’m certified to build a car, in fact and engineering degree could be applied in many different ways. My degree is what has helped me get to where I am today, it helped me build my future.

Q: What’s your proudest accomplishment as an engineer?

Actually, I have two. Oddly enough, graduating was a very proud moment. It took me a long time to understand that I was truly capable of earning the degree. I always had good marks and loved the classes but somehow never believed in myself. Graduating was the proof I needed and things came easily after that. A proud moment working as an engineer is definitely some of my recent work in Kenya. It was great because I was there as a consultant but my degree in chemical engineering was very useful to the team. I got to do both business and engineering and was such a strong contributor because of it.

Q: Tell me about a time in your career when your work has been about discovery or curiosity?

I think it was right when I got out of school. I moved to Switzerland and did research for a Chemical Mixing Company creating a design equation for their sales team. It took me hours of lab work to discover the best way to model what happens when two gasses pass through their static mixers.

Q: What are you doing these days?

I’m currently working as a consultant helping companies manage projects when they don’t have the capacity to do it in house. I would have to say determination and a lot of random events brought me here. I have learned that people you meet early on in your career are very important. You should never burn a bridge because at eventually you will need to cross it. I made many contacts in the first years of my career, which continues to help me today.

When I started out I wanted to move to Europe. I thought I would stay there for 5 years and be an engineer. But life takes to down different paths and now, I have worked in Switzerland, Canada, Kenya, and am currently in New York. Who knows where things will take me next.

Q: Do you feel your work contributes to society? How so?

Yes. As an engineer it always did, I was building things, improving how things worked or were made, was always working on something current. Now that I am more removed from engineering the contribution feels a little less direct.

Q: Why do we need more female engineers?

More female engineers will bring diversity into the engineering field. Diversity is great. It helps make better decisions and women should most certainly be part of those better decisions. We need more women to understand what engineering is about and know that they are capable of it. I think they need to know what a degree could do for them. If women know what it is about then perhaps we will see a change in statistics. Diversity helps make better decisions and women should most certainly be part of those better decisions.

Q: What advice would you give to someone interested in the field of Engineering?

Do your research and go for it! And to women who like chemistry I would urge them to explore chemical engineering. If you like biology, make sure you look at biomedical engineering…etc.

Shaina-Dinsdale-Journey-May

Kim Farwell

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Q&A WITH ENGHERO: Kim Farwell

Kim is a senior technical advisor for extraction and she is the first female to reach this position in her company, Syncrude Canada Ltd. She got there by getting a chemical engineering degree, an MBA and a certificate in oil sands technology.

Kim Farwell Journey Map

Q: What’s one thing you wish you knew about engineering back when you were in high school?

I wish I knew that I was going to enjoy it as much as I do.

Q: What’s your proudest accomplishment as an engineer?

I’m proud of that I received the Early Accomplishment Award and was president of APEGA in 2010. I’m also proud of the time I figured out a very interesting technical problem at the plant.

Q: Tell me about a time in your career when your work has been about discovery or curiosity?

My work was about discovery and curiosity when I solved a problem at the plant. A geologist and I figured out why oils weren’t coming off the separator by applying the fundamentals we had learned to real life.

Q: What are you doing these days?

My job now is a senior technical advisor for extraction and I’m the first female to reach this position in my company, Syncrude Canada Ltd. I got there by getting a chemical engineering degree, an MBA and a certificate in oil sands technology. I also have a co-op degree with six work terms, all with different companies. When I started out in high school, I was planning to be a political journalist but my friend convinced me to enter a Popsicle stick bridge contest. We drilled holes in the Popsicle sticks, put ribbons through them and won.

This is when I really started to consider engineering as a career path. Also, I went to Shad Valley and I worked with Xerox to study a pigment used for photocopiers. This helped me realize that I wanted to work in the field of chemistry.

Q: Do you feel your work contributes to society? How so?

I do. I secure Canada’s energy future with every drop of oil. My work provides jobs and energy to the world-without any ethical issues like in Nigeria or environmental issues.

Q: Why do we need more female engineers?

We need more female engineers because engineering is very much a team effort. You need a team of diverse group of people so they can solve problems and female engineers bring a different skill set.

Q: If you could recommend something for girls in high school what would it be?

I would recommend that you make lots of female friends. They are going to give you strength in all your tough times, ground you when you’re being mistreated and encourage you to never give up.

Ayah Bdeir

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Q&A WITH EngHERO: Ayah Bdeir

Ayah Bdeir is an artist, engineer, and entrepreneur who founded littleBits, a library of tiny interactive circuit-boards which can be easily snapped together to perform specific functions.

Q: What’s one thing you wish you knew about engineering back when you were in high school?

That when you combine engineering with creativity and design you can create the most magical experiences.

Q: What’s your proudest accomplishment as an engineer?

Creating my company, littleBits! littleBits put the power of electronics in the hands of everyone and are changing the way people interact with and understand technology.

Q: Tell me about a time in your career when your work has been about discovery or curiosity?

I started littleBits as a prototype when I was a fellow at the Art and Technology Lab in New York, called Eyebeam, and made some prototypes and put them on my desk and put them on my website. There was only me at the time, so I continued, and I obsessed about the problem. I obsessed about this idea of how to make electronics accessible and how to make them modular. Three and a half years later, I had a product, and that’s when I decided to start a company.

Q: What are you doing these days?

I am the Founder & CEO of littleBits. littleBits are electronic modules that snap together with magnets for prototyping, learning and play.

I have a background in engineering. I did my undergrad as a computer engineer. In my 3rd year of undergrad we were required to do an internship and I got one at MIT as part of LIDS (Lab for Information and Decision Systems). It was a very dry and technical internship so I frequently went looking for something artistic. One day I stumbled upon a talk by the founder of IDEO at the MIT Media Lab and decided that was where I wanted to do my masters.

When I started engineering, I kept trying to find ways to bring more creative practices into engineering. When I went to the Media Lab it started my mission that I’ve been on for the past many years on how to make electronics accessible, and how to make electronics a creative medium.

Q: Do you feel your work contributes to society? How so?

Electronics are everywhere. We now produce, consume and throw out more electronic gadgets and technology enhanced products than ever before.

Over the past years, technology has moved from being an integral part of our lives, to helping define who we are. Yet, engineering is mystified, electronic objects are black-boxed and creativity is limited by the tools and materials available to each discipline.

I believe creativity with electronics (light, sound, sensors, etc.) will explode when they can be used as, and combined with other traditional materials such as paper, cardboard and screws. Materials are intuitive, accessible, self-contained, expressive, and most of all, can be integrated early in the creative process. Why not be able to combine felt with wood and light? Or Popsicle sticks with sound and motion sensitivity? Electronics are too pervasive and the technology too widespread for it to remain sequestered in its own space.

Q: Why do we need more female engineers?

I was lucky to be raised in a household where we were never led to believe that women were different than men, or ever thought that there was anything we couldn’t do. That upbringing has informed my view in how to contribute to the betterment of women in the workplace. I just try to do the best possible work I can every single day and be proud of it, and hopefully make others proud and inspired too. But what I do actually take a lot of care in, is making a gender-neutral product. This helps us achieve part of our mission to get more girls interested in science and engineering, and has been working very well. It is important to me that men and women are evenly represented at my own company and in the larger field of engineering.

Q: Is there a person who influenced your decision to become an engineer?

Yes, see above. I actually tried to quit multiple times during my undergrad but my parents encouraged me to at least complete my degree and then I could try something else. By the time I graduated, I was convinced of all the creative and powerful things I could do as an engineer.

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Check out: Little Bits

Abigail Hutty

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Q&A WITH EngHERO: Abigail Hutty

Abbie Hutty is a Spacecraft Structures Engineer at Airbus Defense and Space. She helped create the ExoMars rover , which is the Mars Rover prototype, and her job involves making technical decisions about the design development on the rover structure. She is an artist and an engineer and she won the IET Young Woman Engineer of the Year 2013.

Q: What’s one thing you wish you knew about engineering back when you were in high school?

That engineering is part of pretty much everything in our daily lives, and how high tech and cutting edge technology is always developed by a team of engineers! When I was at high school I shared the common misconception that “Engineers” were the people that came out to fix your home appliances in their overalls- I didn’t realize it included the design and development side too.

Q: What’s your proudest accomplishment as an engineer?

There are satellites in orbit with bits on them designed by me! That’s a pretty great feeling. You can see satellites sometimes with the naked eye, when the sun has set on Earth but is still shining on thing up in orbit- as they flash in the light from the sun they look like shooting stars. It’s great to go out and look up and know that something on that “shooting star” was once just an idea in your mind, that you developed and perfected, had made, and is now functioning all that way away!

Q: Tell me about a time in your career when your work has been about discovery or curiosity?

A lot of Airbus’ Science focused space missions are all about curiosity and discovery- exploring new worlds, imaging other planets, learning about our solar system, our galaxy, our universe. On a personal level though, the challenge of having to design such missions is so great that I am constantly having to learn about new things- for example today it was how the dust environment on Mars abrades the Materials we are designing our rover out of. You have to stay curious, and love learning new things and finding out about stuff like that.

Q: What are you doing these days?

I am a Spacecraft Structures Engineer at Airbus Defence and Space. My project is the ExoMars Rover- which means I am responsible for making sure the design is strong enough to withstand the launch, entry, descent and landing, and driving around on the surface, whilst also fulfilling all the secondary requirements that the structure fulfils- like thermal insulation, bio-containment, electrical grounding, and so on.

Q: Do you feel your work contributes to society? How so?

My work is helping to further mankind’s understanding of the Universe- so at the highest level, the findings from our missions contribute to society. On a more tangible level, though, discoveries and developments made in the Space industry to meet the unusual requirements up there, often then our found to have uses down on earth- like Teflon, which is now used on non-stick pans- that was developed as a Space material. You never know how something that you develop will one day be used.

Q: Why do we need more female engineers?

We need more engineers in general- a lot of the world’s biggest problems need engineers to fix them- power production, a growing population, an ageing population. Engineers, solve problems, and improve things. We don’t have enough engineers qualifying now to meet the future demand- so we need to increase the numbers entering the profession. If we aren’t targeting females as well as males we are missing out on half our potential recruits!

Q: What initially intrigued you to go into engineering?

I was first inspired to consider engineering when I saw a European Mars mission on the news, and saw that British engineers were working on parts of it. Knowing that such exciting projects were going on in the UK was a real light bulb moment for me- I had no idea. We always hear that high tech industries in the US or China are making these big leaps forward- but is going on all over the world, just some nations are less good at publicising their successes. Now I work on a Mars Mission- the very thing that inspired me to consider engineering in the first place!

Q: How did your project concerning the ExoMars Rover come about? What initiated this project? What new information do engineers and scientists plan to gain from this project?

ExoMars is a European Space agency mission- and its primary goal is to search for signs of life, past or present, on Mars. We have a large drill on board that can drill down up to 2m below the Martian surface, to where there is both protection from the harsh radiation environment at the surface, and where there are still water ice deposits. If life still exists on Mars, that’s where we expect to find it! No rover mission has ever had the capability before to take anything other than surface samples- so this is a really exciting part of the mission. We could be answering the question of whether we are alone in the Universe, or whether there is life right here in our own solar system- that would be a huge discovery.

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Check out Abigail on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81J40tcMDX4

Ann Makosinski

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Q&A WITH EngHERO: Ann Makosinski

Ann Makosinski is an amazing young talented student who contributed in the field of engineering by creating a power-less battery using the human hand. She greatly impacted society positively and helped others without electricity see in the dark.

Q: What’s your proudest accomplishment?

Bringing awareness to people who have no electricity, it’s nice to help kids in counties without power.

Q: Tell me about a time in your career when your work has been about discovery or curiosity?

One of the times when curiosity came was when I was small and asking what is this? about everything around me. And trying to find out what it is like for example; bugs, questioning everything about me when I was small helped me along the way for a curious path into engineering in the future.

Q: What’s your job now (title, company, description)? How did you get there (education, internships, mentors, other experiences)? Where did you think you were going when you started out?

I’m in high school, grade 11. I work at Kumon and have been attending since I was grade 3. I help kids read and write. My parents told me to join but later on, they (Kumon) offered me a job there. I wasn’t that smart when I was young so I didn’t know what to do, later my parents helped me with my studies by placing me there, it helped me a lot.

Q: Do you feel your work/invention contributes to society? How so?

Well, I hope my invention helps the society. I want to help others see in the night especially if they don’t have electricity. I’m really looking forward for my invention in the future to be a useful device.

Q: Why do we need more female engineers?

We need more female engineer because females have bright ideas as men, and also the media is causing more stereotypes, so we really need to get the word out there and that woman have good ideas. Not all woman have to become for example housekeepers (not that they’re bad) ,there are other opportunities out there for them.

Q: Why did you want to contribute in the field of engineering?

I just wanted to explore a bit. For example like my invention, I wanted to see if humans can create battery-less flash light. I was just interested.

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Want to learn more about Ann’s invention? Check out her CBC article here!