Putting Theory into Practice

Here at Stage One, no two days are the same. Each project is unique; the skillset required, the departments involved, the build programme. It can mean that our work is fast paced and our workloads are variable.

For these reasons, it is difficult to accommodate requests for work experience, however much we would like to be able to offer our support. On this rare occasion however, we were pleased to welcome engineering student Ethan Cowell to Stage One for a 10-week internship this summer.

Before leaving to return to university for his final year, our Chief Creative Officer, Tim Leigh, had a chat with Ethan to find out about his experience of engineering so far…

What are you studying at Cambridge?

Engineering. I’ve done two years of general engineering, and when I go back I’ll be specialising. I’ve picked up a mixture of mechanical and aerospace courses.

What attracted you to engineering in the first place?

I love maths and science, but when I’m doing a project, I want to see the end of it. I don’t want my life’s work to be a paper or theory. I want something tangible to come from what I do. I like to be able to see a product being made or something like that.

So, as a child growing up, were there any indications that engineering was going to be your future?

I used to love taking things apart. I remember one year I got a Christmas present, this Nerf like tennis ball launcher for my dog. But it didn’t fire very far, and I thought it could go further, so I took it all to pieces to see if I could wind it up a bit stronger. But then I couldn’t put it back together!

When you first arrived at Cambridge, what was your reaction to what you were being made to learn?

I think it was the learning that took me by surprise, the amount of content with it being a general course, there was a lot of it. It was sort of expected content in the first year, but in this past year there’s so much stuff I never really considered, like material science is something I’d never done before.

And obviously, it’s so important in making design choices. Like, we’ve learned all about how you make seals especially, it’s really important. And then knowing why you use whatever product it is you’re using. In engineering at an institution like Oxbridge, there’s a very academic theoretical field, and then there’s the practical application of putting that into practice.

So, what was the balance? Has it been different here?

It’s been really different here. It’s a very theoretical place at Cambridge, a lot of book work, a lot of solving problems, getting to numbers. Sometimes it feels like the answer is a number rather than a piece of engineering.

One of the hardest things I found about being here is that there’s not an answer to everything I’m doing, I can’t just finish what I’m doing and then go and check the answer sheet to see if it’s right.

So, you don’t always know if you’re right. How did you deal with that?

The team has been great, they’ve been checking the stuff I’m doing all the time.

And how do they know if they’re right?

Well, you could get caught in a loop, but there’s a point where you have to just be confident in what you’ve done. You can sense check everything. You do it a different way. But then it has to come to a point when you say, okay, this is the best I can do, as far as I know, everything’s right. And you give it to someone else to look over and then you’ve just got to let it go. And then you can go into the workshops to see if it really does work.

Tell us about a time when you’ve done that over the last few weeks?

We were working on a ladder that forms part of an access platform, we’ve got a scissor lift to raise and lower the platform for people to get in and out, and the ladder sits flush into the floor when the platform is lowered, but rises with the lift. I’ve been working on some custom fixings for it because it all has to rotate as it goes up to keep the treads flat regardless of the height of the platform.

I’ve been looking at custom fixings so that it’s not covered in nuts and bolts, we don’t want that.

Why not?

It looks very industrial, but it’s public facing, so rather than just runs of bolts on the outside, we’ve machined a topper. It makes you think less about the fact that it’s been built when you look at it. I think it looks like magic.

What’s the difference between magic and engineering?

I imagine a lot of magic is just very clever engineering.

You’ve been here ten weeks. What is your primary takeaway from working at Stage One?

I think when I’m designing and doing any work really, I have to consider how it’s being made a lot more – who’s making it, what tools and machinery do they have access to. Because, well, it’s something I’ve not really come across.

If I’m designing something personally, I’m making it so I sort of know what I can get out of the tools I have. But here, you design something and send it off to the workshop, and if they can’t build what you’ve designed, you’ve got a frustrated machinist at your desk telling you they can’t.

At every step of the design process, you’ve got to think, can this actually be done? I can make it in Inventor, I can look at it on screen, but can someone give it to me in two weeks time and it actually work? It’s just brilliant.

It’s been really enjoyable. I really like the way it works here. The projects, you’re sort of never doing the same thing for too long. It’s been a really fun place to work.