I am passionate about highlighting the exciting opportunities on offer to encourage young people to give real consideration to engineering and manufacturing careers.

Sakthy Selvakumaran

'Make it in Great Britain' is a Government initiative to help highlight and celebrate British manufacturing. The 'Make it in Great Britain' campaign has chosen thirty young rising stars of the manufacturing world - '30 Under 30'- of which alumna Sakthy Selvakumaran is one. The 24-year-old was described by the judging panel as being "a true high-flyer, standing out from her peers and demonstrating passion, enthusiasm and ambition in her role."

The young professionals were selected by a panel of expert judges and come from all walks of manufacturing. They include young talent from companies such as Pendennis Shipyard and GlaxoSmithKline as well as small and medium-sized enterprises such as The Paper Cup Company and Vantage Power.

All aged under 30, the finalists will now go on to act as ambassadors for the 'Make it in Great Britain' campaign, which aims to transform the image of modern manufacturing. They will have a special role in engaging with other young people, to ensure that the next generation is aware of the opportunities and careers in the engineering industry.

Sakthy graduated in 2010 and now works full time on civil structures as a member of the engineering team at Ramboll. She spent most of her holidays before graduating assisting with a number of projects including the assessment of bridge upgrades for the enlargement programme of the Docklands Light Railway. For her masters research project, Sakthy carried out an analysis of micro-hydroelectric power schemes in the remote Peruvian Andes, undertaking both desk research and working out in the field. Immediately after graduating, Sakthy worked in Spain for a year with Davis Langdon and with the charity, Engineers Without Borders UK, having won the opportunity through a 2011 Vodafone World of Difference Award. She was also part of a team awarded a Commendation in the Society of Public Health Engineers' Young Engineers Award 2011.

Visiting the Engineering Department's Baker Building to meet year 12 students attending a summer workshop, Sakthy told the aspiring engineers: "The opportunities here in the Department of Engineering are endless. Whatever you want to do you will find someone prepared to help you. I thoroughly enjoyed the challenges and experiences of my time in Cambridge."

She added: "There are a wealth of jobs in manufacturing - from the conception and design of new technologies and processes through to actually delivering and making them. I am passionate about highlighting the exciting opportunities on offer to encourage young people to give real consideration to engineering and manufacturing careers, which are a rewarding way of using your skills to create solutions for society's most pressing challenges. As a sector we need to encourage fresh talent into the industry."

An obvious advocate of engineering as a career, Sakthy encourages university applications from minority ethnic groups and youths from disadvantaged areas through mentoring and speaking at events and is thoroughly enjoying her role as a '30 Under 30' ambassador.

Paul Jackson, CEO of Engineering UK and one of the '30 Under 30' judges said:"I am always impressed at the level of young talent present in manufacturing and engineering, and over the years have met countless young people brimming with potential who have gone on to achieve great things.

"That is one of the reasons why I am supporting 'Make it in Great Britain', and why I was happy to be a judge for the '30 under 30'."

The 'Make it in Great Britain' campaign aims to challenge outdated perceptions of the UK manufacturing industry, which is worth approximately £137bn to the UK economy each year and employs 2.5 million people.

I start by giving the wrong explanation and asking who has heard it and every time 95% of the audience puts their hand up. Only a handful will know that it is wrong.

Professor Holger Babinsky

It's one of the most tenacious myths in physics and it frustrates aerodynamicists the world over. Now, the Department's Professor Holger Babinsky has created a 1-minute video that he hopes will finally lay to rest a commonly used yet misleading explanation of how wings lift.

"A wing lifts when the air pressure above it is lowered. It's often said that this happens because the airflow moving over the top, curved surface has a longer distance to travel and needs to go faster to have the same transit time as the air travelling along the lower, flat surface. But this is wrong," he explained. "I don't know when the explanation first surfaced but it's been around for decades. You find it taught in textbooks, explained on television and even described in aircraft manuals for pilots. In the worst case, it can lead to a fundamental misunderstanding of some of the most important principles of aerodynamics."

To show that this common explanation is wrong, Holger filmed pulses of smoke flowing around an aerofoil (the shape of a wing in cross-section). When the video is paused, it's clear that the transit times above and below the wing are not equal: the air moves faster over the top surface and has already gone past the end of the wing by the time the flow below the aerofoil reaches the end of the lower surface.

"What actually causes lift is introducing a shape into the airflow, which curves the streamlines and introduces pressure changes - lower pressure on the upper surface and higher pressure on the lower surface," clarified Holger. "This is why a flat surface like a sail is able to cause lift - here the distance on each side is the same but it is slightly curved when it is rigged and so it acts as an aerofoil. In other words, it's the curvature that creates lift, not the distance."

Holger is quick to stress that he is far from the only aerodynamicist who is frustrated by the perpetuation of the myth: colleagues have in the past expressed their concerns in print and online. Where he hopes his video will help debunk the myth once and for all is by providing a quick and visual demonstration to show that the most commonly used explanation cannot possibly be correct. The original video, created by Holger a few years ago using a wind tunnel, has now been re-edited in high quality with a voice-over in which he explains the phenomenon as it happens.

Holger's research focuses on the fundamental aspects of aerodynamics as they relate to aircraft wings, Formula I racing cars, articulated lorries and wind turbines. One of his visions is to design a wing that will enable aircraft to fly faster and more efficiently. Using a massive wind tunnel within the Department of Engineering, Holger and his team have been modelling the shockwaves that are created on aircraft wings and that restrict the plane's top speed.

This video supported lectures Holger gave as part of a series of University of Cambridge Subject Masterclasses aimed at Year 12 school children: "It's important to put out this video because when I give this lecture to school kids I start by giving the wrong explanation and asking who has heard it and every time 95% of the audience puts their hand up. Only a handful will know that it is wrong."

This has really changed my perception of engineering - I hadn't realised what a wide ranging subject it was, or how creative an engineer can be.

Natalia Adamson, year 10 student

The final day of term saw recipients of this year's James Dyson Foundation Undergraduate Bursaries hold an open morning for year 10 students from Parkside School. As part of their award, the final year Engineering students are expected to present their projects to other young people in a manner which will inform, educate and inspire them. Invited guests included some of the academics involved in supervising the projects, along with Tom Dyson, brother of James Dyson the inventor, industrial designer and founder of the Dyson company and the charitable James Dyson Foundation.

The Bursaries were established in 2011 to support fourth-year undergraduate student projects in Engineering Problem Solving and Design. The awards are targeted at projects which offer excellent opportunities for outreach work in schools and include individual bursaries of up to £1,000.

Students Wai-chuen Cheung, Fraser Atkins, Will Vernon, Alex Robinson and James Blood made presentations to the school students which involved demonstrating how wings work, projectile motion, solar powered cards and 3D printing. Paul Mallaband presented his project on Arduino electronics separately during an off-site school visit. Demonstrations and hands-on practical sessions saw the Parkside students simulating the effects of a 3D printer by using syringes full of melted cheese and tortilla wraps before moving onto building their own solar powered vehicles and mastering the tricky art of origami to create their own paper boomerangs.

Will Vernon commented: "I really enjoyed interacting with the students, it was great fun to hear their ideas and thoughts on the lecture subjects. I found it quite tricky to present to them on a new topic, and to explain the relevant engineering principles in a simple and understandable way but I was very impressed by how some of the teams approached the 3D printing task by coming up with very different and sometimes ingenious ways to build the tallest tower that none of us had thought of."

Alex Robinson, a member of the Cambridge University Eco Race team, showed how to build a basic car which could be powered by a solar cell and was impressed by how engaged the young students were with the task. He said: "I was impressed with the cars produced - the students obviously thought through the design, with some choosing to make three-wheeled versions to save weight, or even a four-wheel-drive version using two kits. I was surprised how involved the students were with the activity, as they were all very keen to get a working vehicle by the end, and clearly enjoyed testing them. Hopefully they could also see the links to real-world engineering design challenges."

The morning session was summed up by Fraser Atkins who concluded: "Seeing the enthusiasm of the students was incredibly rewarding and I sincerely hope that it has led to some of them considering engineering in the future."

Parkside student Natalia Adamson was in full agreement. She said:"This has really changed my perception of engineering - I hadn't realised what a wide ranging subject it was, or how creative an engineer can be."

Applications are currently being considered for next year's James Dyson Foundation Undergraduate Bursaries, when six more Engineering students will engage in challenging projects and inspiring outreach activities.