More girls should post EE video

[Simon]

I don't understand the sudden expectation of more women in engineering. If it's what they want to do they will do it these days and every college in the UK loves to plaster their site with pictures of female students in the lab.

[coppercone2]

non-equal distribution means people get all sorts of ideas relating to things like discrimination, male culture, or currently radical ideas like difference between male and female intellect

a imbalance is seen as a problem in a society that says things are theoretically equal naturally but are unequal because of negative societal and social factors brought on by the history of human development

[james_s]

Gloves for hot glue? OK say's it all really..... I prefer to have my hands free when working, using gloves just reduces the usefulness of my hands and hot glue is not actually that hot but each to their own.

It sure feels hot when you get it on your hand. I got a fairly serious burn on my finger from hot glue a couple years ago, it dripped on the side of my finger and stuck there. Blistered and left a scar that was visible for a couple months. I still don't wear gloves to use it but I can see why someone might want to.

[coppercone2]

What you might not know about hot glue is that there are industrial grades which require higher temperatures as well. I believe some go higher then 450F (they don't look normal, usually applied from a heavy duty looking 3M applicator and the cartridges have a solid plasticky/wax brown color rather then the flimsy low temp melt clearish stuff.

Yea, industrially you get the ribbed yellow ones used
https://www.hotmelt.com/blogs/blog/the-ultimate-3m-hot-melt-glue-stick-guide

[james_s]

But I do not call making hobby projects with pre existing boards and a few lines of code where 99.99% of the code was provided doing electronics. but with the new perversion of the word geek it makes you a geek.

Sometimes I do that. Other times I design the whole thing from scratch and lay out a board, and write all the firmware myself. It really just depends on what I'm building, if I can accomplish it by sticking together a handful of dirt cheap modules from China using existing libraries and it does what I need it to do then why not? If it's a one-off going into a box and doesn't need to be visually pleasing then I don't always feel the need to show off.

[coppercone2]

I call it 'systems engineering' as not to ruffle any feathers because it sometimes takes an awful lot of time to find all that shit. And its often heavily cost optimized.

Even if you put together a computer its a engineered solution since you looked at all the specs, made sure everything was compatible, ran a test procedure.. I guess now everything works better together but its still fairly skilled labor.

[mtdoc]

But I do not call making hobby projects with pre existing boards and a few lines of code where 99.99% of the code was provided doing electronics.

I'll bet the same thing was said when people first started using ICs instead of building using all discrete components or before MCU use became prevelant. Things evolve.

In a professional setting - I'd say whatever is the most efficient to get the job at hand done would be wise. In a hobbyist setting - whatever is most enjoyable. Whichever label once chooses to put on it seems irrelevant to me.

[bd139]

TBF Arduino is just a slightly crack-smoking preprocessor around AVR-libc / AVR-gcc and some off the shelf libraries that are mediocre quality and a just about good enough IDE. But you know that gets you to the destination reasonably well compared to everything else. I can't complain. I regularly throw some stuff together quick with one to get something done.

But I've got agree with Simon but on a slightly different tangent. There's a long way to go from an Arduino hookup to a commercial product.

[mtdoc]

There's a long way to go from an Arduino hookup to a commercial product.

I agree. But I bet there are lots of commercial products out there that use an ATmega 328 or similar chip that were prototyped using an Arduino and using some of the freely available code.

[Macbeth]

seriously of the 100s of EE videos I've watched, I only remember 2-3 female teachers, and only 1 lady actually doing soldering.

I want to see girls soldering.

I highly recommend the BBC 1 series "Making Out". Watching girls soldering really isn't as fun as you think it is. It was always considered womens work.



Margi Clarke lived in the terraced house in the street next to me.. lol. My GF at the time worked in the Tech Park supervising girls soldering all day long. I couldn't get a job soldering because I was a man - the dude told me to join the RAF instead. I am not kidding.

[bd139]

There's a long way to go from an Arduino hookup to a commercial product.

I agree. But I bet there are lots of commercial products out there that use an ATmega 328 or similar chip that were prototyped using an Arduino and using some of the freely available code.

Indeed there are. I'm building one now!

[Cerebus]

Margi Clarke lived in the terraced house in the street next to me.. lol. My GF at the time worked in the Tech Park supervising girls soldering all day long. I couldn't get a job soldering because I was a man - the dude told me to join the RAF instead. I am not kidding.

I've seen the production lines at EMI and Marconi, in the late Seventies, early Eighties, crammed with women looking like nothing more than a whole room full of school dinnerladies. They used to give them huge firestick soldering irons but they'd do lovely clean, delicate work with them.  A friend of mine, Patricia, used to work with a team (about half lasses) wiring the airframes of Tornadoes. The UK used to employ a lot of female technicians at one point.

[bd139]

Yes exactly. My mother used to put Telequipment scopes together. Badly as she said 

[Cerebus]

Badly as she said 

I suspect she mean in the "Bad Girl" sense - some of those lasses could turn the air blue and woe betide the spotty apprentice who had to cross the factory floor on his own, unguarded.

[chris_leyson]

Jeri Ellsworth on building a magnetic loop antenna,

It really got the point across about LF dipoles and the mounting height. Good to see she's making videos again 

[coppercone2]

honestly my whole day got derailed because of the glowing knockers

I am waiting for a brazilian 'tail light' twerk now tbh

man my day was kinda dreary but THEN THERE WAS LIGHT

[chris_leyson]

honestly my whole day got derailed because of the glowing knockers

I remember the Farnborough air show in '78, just wandering around as you do and I heard something like "she's hot" and it got my attention. Turned out to be some guys exhibiting an IR camera that they just happened to be pointing at the crowd, you know what, they were right, I spent ages staring at that monitor.

[NiHaoMike]

Some girls building a small house:

[coppice]

Margi Clarke lived in the terraced house in the street next to me.. lol. My GF at the time worked in the Tech Park supervising girls soldering all day long. I couldn't get a job soldering because I was a man - the dude told me to join the RAF instead. I am not kidding.

It used to be pretty common in the UK to find 100% of the people soldering production stuff were women, but anyone working on prototypes was male.

[westfw]

I wonder if the rumors about her being a actress

A well-dressed (by some measure) guy doing a technical video or presentation without obvious competence (or at a trade show booth) might be assumed to be in marketing or sales.  A woman gets assumed to be an "actress" (or "booth babe.")   -  I don't understand why more men don't "get" that women think this is a problem...
(I remember... "It's OK Bill: when the sales team takes you to a customer site, they WANT you to look like a "real engineer", an not another salesman."  So it's not like the "looks to good to be technical" isn't a thing for both genders.  But in the case of women, too often it turns into "oh, they don't know anything" instead of "oh, they're not as good as Dave.")

girls soldering really isn't as fun as you think it is. It was always considered womens work.

Fine motor skills, you know.  When I had a summer job as an Electronics Tech (mostly wire-wrapping; some soldering), more than half of the full-time techs were women.
And I'm pretty sure I owe my current level of comfort to women bosses and founders... (Thank you especially to Ellen and Sandy!)

[coppice]

I wonder if the rumors about her being a actress

A well-dressed (by some measure) guy doing a technical video or presentation without obvious competence (or at a trade show booth) might be assumed to be in marketing or sales.  A woman gets assumed to be an "actress" (or "booth babe.")   -  I don't understand why more men don't "get" that women think this is a problem...

I guess men think that way because they've been to quite a few exhibitions where this is exactly what happens. A little less today than 20 or 30 years ago, but only a little less. Don't jump to judge people's attitudes as being how they think things should be. Most times they are just a response to observing how things really are today.

[Cerebus]

A well-dressed (by some measure) guy doing a technical video or presentation without obvious competence (or at a trade show booth) might be assumed to be in marketing or sales.  A woman gets assumed to be an "actress" (or "booth babe.")   -  I don't understand why more men don't "get" that women think this is a problem...

My assumption would be that the well-dressed women were also from the marketing department. Depending on the industry, the presence of "booth babes" is largely a thing of the past, but when they were there it was pretty obvious who was from the agency and who was from marketing - the stage exhortation comes to mind "Teeth and tits love, teeth and tits", i.e. smile and stick your chest out. Back in my tech journo days I'd encounter a lot of people from PR companies, roughly an equal number of men and women, and it was pretty clear that the men had been selected on looks just as much as the women had been.

And I'm pretty sure I owe my current level of comfort to women bosses and founders... (Thank you especially to Ellen and Sandy!)

My experience has been somewhat different, but I think that's because I think most of the women managers I had to deal with were from the era where women felt they "had to be better than the men to succeed" and "better" translated into "at least as arrogant and pigheaded as the men".

[LaserSteve]

I work in a Engineering College.  Watch out fellows, many of our classes are greater then 45% female.   I coach one of the intercollegiate robotics teams, and we have many women on the team who are not afraid to get their hands dirty, take the manual machining  course, or do hands on repairs.  Our Baja racing team has many female participants including builders, designers, and field repair team, and  drivers.  Thee Mach 2 Rocket team has a female president, female propulsion designers etc... The concrete canoe team is mostly female , too..

These women do it all, solder, weld, design, machine, present, budget, everything.   So watch the male chauvinist attitude, it is becoming dated.



Steve

[rrinker]

 Tim's about right - in my EE graduating class in 1988 we had 2 women out of about 100 total. And one of those was already out as a lesbian. And quite good at EE stuff- she was part of our group that did projects and studied together.

 In the 50's and into the mid-60's, my Mom worked at building transformers. As did my grandmother. She was pretty skilled at soldering, soldered all my projects back when she didn't think I was old enough to use a soldering iron by myself. After she burned my finger once though, that was it, I just did it myself from then on.

[james_s]

I work in a Engineering College.  Watch out fellows, many of our classes are greater then 45% female.   I coach one of the intercollegiate robotics teams, and we have many women on the team who are not afraid to get their hands dirty, take the manual machining  course, or do hands on repairs.  Our Baja racing team has many female participants including builders, designers, and field repair team, and  drivers.  Thee Mach 2 Rocket team has a female president, female propulsion designers etc... The concrete canoe team is mostly female , too..

These women do it all, solder, weld, design, machine, present, budget, everything.   So watch the male chauvinist attitude, it is becoming dated.



Steve

I see very very little of the chauvinist attitude. Most guys I know would love to see more women doing stuff like this, those that do have always been very popular, but the few that I've met throughout my life I could count on my fingers. I learned a long time ago that talking about engineering was about the most efficient method there is of repelling women. Everyone talks about the male chauvinist attitude but what about the female anti-nerd attitude that has been so prominent throughout my life?