Mrs. Mac and the art of rhythm
SET 98
Imperial Fringe
Caroline Baillie Imperial College

Introduction

The project involved writing, developing music and producing a contemporary play about a woman, not before represented in popular culture, Florence Violet McKenzie, Australia’s first female electrical engineer, OBE, first female ham licence holder of Australia, and originator of the WRANS (Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service). The play blended together original music from composer Solange Kershaw of Sydney, and created a medium for communication about science, technology and society.

The play

In recognition of the contribution that young women can and need to make in the fields of science and engineering, the play provided some 120 fourth/fifth year school students (males and females) with real-life models of creative women in science. The play was written jointly by the Director, Caroline Baillie, also a lecturer in Materials Science at Imperial College, and Solange Kershaw. The play was about radio, the communication medium of Florence’s time. Solange and Caroline wrote the play using the internet, todays’ communication medium, as they were located in Australia and the UK respectively, at the time of writing. Solange,  as well as being a composer is an acoustics engineer. She used her fees for writing the play to travel to the UK, in order to take part in the performances. Both writers, being engineers and artists, were thus able to act as themselves in the play within a play. The school students were thus able to watch the process of two engineers producing a theatrical play about a female engineer.

The play was followed by an interactive workshop, aimed at helping the students draw some more from the play to reflect on. The actors, several of which were also scientists or engineers, as members of the Imperial Fringe Theatre Company, facilitated discussion amongst the students as detailed below. The whole evening proved very successful in achieving its aims of communicating ideas about engineering in a positive way to school students who might not otherwise be exposed to such discussions and who would possibly be turned off by a standard presentation from a University. Although there was a focus on girls, the majority of audience was male and this did not prove to be a problem. Indeed the awareness raised amongst young male students was felt to be very beneficial. Alongside raising their awareness of gender issues in engineering, there are also many male students who are put off engineering by its negative image.

The Interactive workshop

The first question was aimed at helping the students to reflect on the play and to see whether they had in fact been following it.What was the play about?

Certainly many answers were focused on the subject matter. This showed us that the story was clear despite our unconventional script set -up:

It’s about Flo who was the first woman to become an engineer
Mrs Mac during the war
Navy Morse code
Engineering before Flo’s mums time
About a lady who was an electrical engineer
Mrs Mac trained herself
Science ‘things’
Autobiography
A play within a play
Electricity/radio/world war two/Morse code/ communication
Theatre
May telling ghost stories and wanting to marry a clergyman
Interview with the director
Chamberlain/Marconi
Teaching the troops
Problems getting into the Navy

However, many others saw a message in the play - some concentrated on women but others saw a larger issue- that of ‘being yourself’. We did not know if the students would pick these up without our help and were delighted to see that immediate impact was quite strong:

Struggle
Proving yourself
Self satisfaction
Example
Did what she wanted to do
Engineering was interesting to women
Challenge of perceptions of engineering
To show that creative people can make it
To open people’s eyes about engineering
She enjoyed what she did
Improve life - taught girls and boys
Prejudice against females
Not to be afraid to do what you want to do
It’s about life and somebody helping others
About a lady who proved she could do it
Not falling into stereotypes
Independence
Be what you want
Underclassing of women
Women and engineering
Careers
Sexism
Individuality

We then asked the students to focus on Florence McKenzie as an engineer:

Was Florence a typical engineer?

No:

She’s interested in men
Enthusiastic
Female
Not narrow
Not stuck in a rut
Did other things
Enjoyed life
She got married
Confident
Trendsetter
Learnt for herself
Unique (she liked tropical fish)
No person is typical

Yes:

Smart
Tall
Fast cars
Tight pocketed
Middle class
Studies a lot
Work committed
Did the same as men

And so we were then able to continue on with questions of the image of an engineer.

What is an engineer like?

And as expected there were some rather crude stereotypes being discussed:

Old
Sad
Someone with glasses
Someone with a beard
Someone with a uniform
Boring
Someone who leads a monotonous life
Works in dilapidated conditions
Messy
Same clothes everyday
Man
Works alone
Wears a hard hat
Wears white coats and safety specs
Applies science
Geek
Mad scientist
Imaginative
Eccentric
Logical
Systematic

Furthermore, to the question

What does an engineer do?

We received the following replies:

Plays around with scientific equipment
Fixes things
Makes things no-one wants
Improves on old ideas
Plays around with bits
Never smiles
Fiddles with things
Invents things
Reads a lot of books
Uses equations and formulae
Works in a big grey office block
Uses computers and drawings
Writes things
Does experiments
Passes exams - is clever
Works in a garage
Splits atoms
Plans for the future
Fixes
Builds stuff

So, then we decided to ask the students to change the focus and to realise that this is not necessarily how engineers are, nor in fact had to be. And..

If you were an engineer what sort of thing would you do?

Problem solving
Space travel - explore - machine to travel
Less pollution
Invent things to help
Move water from one place to another
Traffic
Reduce the amount of fuel being used
New car design
Work together for support
Work alone to do own thing
Global warming
Live on other planets - research
Explore beyond the solar system
Design - art - buildings
Civil engineer
Flats with devices - computers etc.
Transport under the sea
Robots as slaves to cook and clean
Cars that fly
Design a plane that doesn’t use much fuel - ticket price reduced
Faster cars
Something that helps in cancer /HIVresearch
Hi-tech security alarm
More sunshine
Save energy
Improve public transport - less strikers
Make lots of money
Music production
Miniturisation
City in the sky
Stop exploiting things they don’t own
Design safer cars
Better computer programmes
Faster chips
Cars that work more efficiently
Smaller cars
Faster aeroplanes
Teleport system
Grow massive vegetables
Take everyone to the moon
New source of energy
Save endangered species
Invent better looking men!
Weather machine
Compact computers
Radio that knows your taste
Auto car pilot
Dog that walks itself
Fix ozone layer
Pills that fill you up instead of food
Machines to move dustbins
Give new engineering or technology to third world countries

Summary

This list reflects the incredible level of creative thinking that seemed to have been inspired by the play. The students seemed to enjoy watching the play and participating in the workshop afterwards. The evening was videotaped  - showing the production as well as interactive sessions afterwards it is hoped that given adequate funding, this tape may be used in conjunction with the script, for schools to run their own play/workshop. Feedback from the schools is presently being sought but immediate feedback on the night was extremely positive from teachers and student alike. It certainly seemed to provide food for thought and we hope that both the students and teachers will take back a more positive image to their schools.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to the Imperial College Union who provided the venue free of charge, to Dramsoc who provided lighting at a reduced rate and especially to Melanie Thody from Schools Liason at Imperial College who provided refreshments for the students, coach travel, help with arrangements and lots of support. We would also like to thank SET 98 for funding this exciting venture.