Nov 10, 2022
By Women's Engineering Society
Women’s Engineering Society (WES) are delighted to once again be celebrating Tomorrow’s Engineers Week by arranging our seventh WES Lottie Tour to show how varied and exciting it is to work in engineering.
The WES Lottie Tour was created by the Women's Engineering Society Early Careers Board (WES ECB) and the people who gave birth to Lottie - Arklu. The aim of the tour is to capture the interest of a younger engineering audience, by showing current engineers 'touring' with Lottie Dolls. Lottie is a doll that is based on the average proportions of a 9 year old girl rather than an adult, and aims to promote the empowerment of children by encouraging kids to be themselves, to play imaginatively and adventurously and to have fun! If a young girl can see a doll that looks like them or shares their hobbies, then they can start to imagine themselves going into STEM, and hopefully this can keep their passion for STEM subjects going when they progress through school and on to university.
The idea of the WES Lottie tour is for organisations to have a Lottie Doll that they use to showcase the engineering opportunities within their departments. During Tomorrow’s Engineers Week they post photos on social media of Lottie doing everyday engineering work which are shared worldwide. The WES Lottie Tour is sponsored by McLaren Racing, Fugro and GKN Automotive.
McLaren Racing have their very own female engineer doll kitted out in McLaren Racing team kit, complete with ear defenders and safety shoes. Lottie has been involved in all of the projects and practicalities of day-to-day life as an engineer at McLaren Racing she’s even spent time with the F1 team to learn what it takes to complete an efficient pit-stop!
Fugro is a new sponsor for 2022. As the world’s leading Geo-data specialist, Fugro were delighted to welcome Lottie and show her that there has never been a more exciting time to work in ground engineering. They are using Lottie to help inspire and encourage the younger generation, especially girls, to consider STEM subjects and careers in engineering.
GKN Automotive Innovation Centre have been showing Lottie all the latest technology for Electric Cars and how they help drive a cleaner and sustainable world. Lottie has been helping out with putting prototype motors to the test, to see if their predictions for efficiency are accurate, whether the mechanical parts and the electronics components are behaving the way they expected and whether the software controls are bug-free.
Lottie hasn’t just been visiting the sponsors though, she’s been all over the world showcasing the best of engineering. She even spent 6 weeks on HMS Queen Elizabeth! Each year the Lottie tour gets bigger and this year we are excited that Lottie is visiting even more organisations including GCHQ, Heathrow Airport, and Dyson, as well as getting as far afield as Australia where she is visiting Transport for NSW - Sydney Metro and Lesotho where she’ll be meeting the Girls Coding Academy.
There are also lots of additional resources on the WES Lottie Tour website where you can find volunteer profiles, our Lottie Lockdown adventure books and a gallery showing WES Lottie Tour photos from previous years.
Kate from the WES Early Careers Board says “I love organising the Lottie Tour as each year I learn about a role in engineering that I didn’t know about before. Seeing the photos of Lottie at the huge variety of engineering companies she visits makes me proud to be an engineer and even more proud that we can show the younger generation what it means to be an engineer!”.
WES are extremely excited to see where Lottie ends up this year!
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