THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF COMPUTING Sophie Lambourne (UIV

THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF COMPUTING

Sophie Lambourne, UIV & Cheuk-Yi Cherie (Sage) Lau, UIV

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On Wednesday 20 October, a few Downe House girls visited the National Museum of Computing in Milton Keynes, for a day focusing on young women in STEM. We had so much fun there and all learnt a lot.

Our first activity was led by RAF military crew. We had to build a secure telecom tower out of nuts, bolts, washers and bridges. The goal was to create a free-standing tower with two disks 1.2 metres above the ground, 30cm apart from each other. All three teams completed this goal in under 30 minutes. We had to use a range of STEM skills, such as engineering, design and collaboration.

We then went on to learn about the Sphero robot [1 & 2], which was very cool! The Sphero is a ball that flashes and lights up. You can move the ball around using controls on an iPad, or you can program it to do certain things. We experimented with different games, my favourite being ping pong. In this game, the Sphero moves in random directions, but when it encounters another object, such as your hand, it changes colour. It then makes a ‘boing’ noise and moves in another direction. We also played snake with the Sphero, with a small screen on the robot being the game screen.

When we tilted the ball in different directions, this is the way the snake would move. In this activity, we had to do some problem solving when our code wasn’t working correctly, which is a key STEM skill to have.

As a quick bonus during our lunch break, we got to see an original Enigma machine [3] that was used in World War II. We got a fascinating demonstration of how the machine works and an explanation of how hard it would be to crack the code with nearly 160 quintillion combinations [4].

After our lunch break, we took part in a workshop with Sophos, a company that specialises in security and advanced threat protection. It resembled an actual cyber threat attack, and we had around 45 minutes to solve the issue before it sent a virus to shut down the internet. We used clues that they provided, and my favourite was when we had to use the tape measure to wrap around a vitamin bottle, like the Jefferson wheel cipher. The tape measure had letters and numbers, and it revealed a password after you wrapped it around. Each group used problem-solving skills and collaboration to defeat the cyber threat. It also put into perspective how prevalent this issue is and how cyber security is of utmost importance.

We then went over to our penultimate activity and met up with software engineer, Kim [5]. She taught us how to make a machine recognise different objects such as a cat plush or a water bottle using a website called ‘Teachable Machine’. We learnt about the fundamental concepts of machine learning and how repetition is effective. There was a short Q&A session after that, and we asked questions about her profession as a software engineer. She talked about the numerous projects she has worked on, but her favourite was a no-contact payment method.

Finally, we had a scavenger hunt where we learnt about the female trailblazers who have worked in the computing industry. We learnt facts and new information about women who have changed the world of STEM for the better. Before leaving, we had a quick session where we played video games on the same computers and consoles [6,7 & 8]. There was Pac-Man and Space Invaders, but my favourite was Super Mario Bros. 2, released in 1988 by Nintendo. It was fun to see how much the game has changed, from the first few years to nowadays, and many still play.

We headed to the gift shop before saying goodbye to the staff who helped at the museum. It was an eventful and entertaining day, and we thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

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MATRIARCH COMPETITION

Dr Rachel Maclennan

On 11 February, Downe House celebrated The International Day of Women and Girls in Science. To acknowledge and honour this important day we invited pupils to write a short article about different animals (and plants!) that live as part of a matriarchal society, with the title – The Most Impressive Matriarch of the Natural World. We are very pleased to publish some of the excellent articles here. A special well done to Aggie (LVI) for her winning article!

MATRIARCH COMPETITION GRAND CANYON

Alexandra Diez Sanchez-Tabernero, Remove

The Grand Canyon is localised in Colorado, USA. This amazing natural rock is formed of reddish hue cliffs, narrow places and a great depth that impacts. It is 277 miles (446km) long, 18 miles (29km) wide and 1 mile (1857m) of depth. And to admire it in its maximum expression you must get to the incredible Skywalk viewpoint, which is about 1,300 meters high, where you can witness one of the prettiest sunsets.

The river that passes through the Grand Canyon is the Colorado River, which is born in Wyoming and its mouth is the gulf of California. The Grand Canyon used to be a holy site and people made pilgrimages to it. The first European to be known to have viewed the Grand Canyon was the Spanish man with the surname Garcia Lopez de Cardenas in 1540. Of the 90 mammal species in the Grand Canyon, 18 are rodents and 22 bats. Of the 1737 known species of vascular plants 167 are fungi species, 64 moss species and 195 are species of lichen.

The air quality of the Grand Canyon is some of the cleanest in the USA, although as there are forests and sand in the Grand Canyon the air can be considerably affected by forest fires and dust storms (also called sandstorms). It also contains five of the seven life zones and three of the four desert types in North America.

The Hopi and the Navajo tribes live in the Grand Canyon, they are not the leading tribes of this wonderful place, but they do live there. Although both tribes have fought for territory, the Hopi have outnumbered the Navajo, but they have been growing a bigger population. The Hopi language relates to the ancient Uto-Aztecan language family, the Navajo language relates to the long dead Athapaskan language family. The only similarity these tribes have is that they are both Matriarchal (lead

by women).

MATRIARCH COMPETITION MOTHERS

Phillipa Drysdale, LIV

Female dominance is surprisingly prominent in nature and many species of animal (and even some plants) show clear signs of a matriarchy. I could talk about how trees shelter their young or how female monkeys are often the alphas of the group and form thriving social circles. However, all these characteristics are compared to our own traits, and this is how we make the observation of ‘matriarchy’, so arguably, the most impressive matriarch of the natural world is us, humankind.

The dictionary definition of matriarchy is ‘a system of society or government ruled by a woman or women’. Up until recently, and even now in some cases, males have been considered the dominant gender among homo sapiens, so how can we be the most impressive matriarchy? Well, the fact that we gave matriarchy a name, and that we recognise this trait in the first place is the first sign of the human matriarchy. Women, on average, have been shown to live longer than men, and therefore, the oldest person in a family or community is often a woman. This coincides with the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) definition; ‘matriarchy is a form of social organisation where the mother or oldest female is the head of the family and descent, and relationship are reckoned through the female line’.

Human mothers take care of their children for roughly eighteen years, longer than any other animal on the planet. Women can be surrogates for others and donate their eggs which is not seen anywhere else in the natural world. They can also adopt and foster other human children but most of all, being able to recognise this trait in others is what makes humans the most impressive matriarchs of the natural world.

MATRIARCH COMPETITION ELEPHANTS

Aleksandra Cork, LIV

Elephants are magnificent giants with legendary memories, thick skin and tender hearts but most people seem to overlook the fact that strong females lead their herds. Patriarchy in animals and humans seems to be the default, but for many animals in the natural world they live with a matriarch. In elephants, the oldest and most dominant females are the ones who lead the herd. Elephant matriarchs hold their complex social structures together, they are the social glue.

Elephants live a very long time (up to 70 years) this means the matriarch can connect with the younger generations, looking after her calves but also grand mothering other calves. A matriarch increases the survival rate of young elephant calves, they are always looking after the herd. The older females are often chosen to be the matriarch because they have a good memory of water and food sources they have encountered in the past. This can help the herd survive in the harshest of conditions.

The influence of matriarchs is becoming more and more important, matriarchs often have larger tusks and are therefore more at risk to being poached. Studies have shown that if a young elephant’s matriarch is culled, they have decision-making problems and don’t know how to behave in the herd. With years of experience, the matriarch is enriched with knowledge and is a necessity to the herd. The death of a matriarch can not only traumatise the herd, but it can be a disadvantage when confronting enemies, finding food or navigating.

Matriarchs are necessary for elephants to live healthily and happily and our top priority should be to keep them safe. Matriarchs can be much more beneficial for certain animals than patriarchs and fascinating elephants definitely have the most impressive matriarch.

MATRIARCH COMPETITION BEES

Gabrielle Yue, Remove

In my opinion, I believe that the most ordinary out all matriarchs, may just be the most impressive, and they are the bees.

A beehive is always ruled by a queen, hence the matriarchy. A beehive’s bee colony is an impressive, hierarchical organisation that focuses on efficiency and growth, which is all revolved around the queen. If their queen was lost or hurt, the entire colony would dissolve until a new queen was found. The queen bee in a hive would always be larger than the others and is also the only bee in the entire hive that can produce fertilised eggs for the colony. Within her lifespan of up to five years, she can produce up to 200,000 eggs, enough to make up for any injury or loss that could happen. Most of the bee colony is made up of only infertile females, whose lifespans only last up to six weeks in comparison to the queen.

These worker bees run the hive, with chores such as processing nectar and pollen, regulating the temperature, adding to the hive by building new wax cells, so on and so forth. And what about the males? Well, these bees are called drones bees, and their only purpose is to mate with the queen once she is chosen on what is called the nuptial flight, before dying straight afterwards.

Therefore, I believe the bees to be the most impressive matriarchs in the world, as they can manage most of their lives without any males, unlike most animal species.

MATRIARCH COMPETITION CLOWNFISH

Gabriella Bailey, LIV

Matriarchy is the social system in which females hold the powerful positions (usually in political roles), whereas patriarchy is the social system where men hold the powerful roles, this is not something that should be encouraged and is also something that many disagree with. Patriarchy is predominant within our social system. A lot of women find this discouraging, especially those who are interested in political roles.

An amazing and inspiring example of this is within the Clownfish community. Clownfish form a matriarchal society where the largest (normally most dominant) female is queen. Clownfish are hermaphrodites, this means they have both male and female sex organs, this can be an abnormal natural occurrence in some species. However, all Clownfish are born as males but in a clutch of Clownfish the most dominant fish will become a female and the next dominant fish will become the mate of this female. The rest will remain male until the dominant fish is deceased. This is interesting as it shows the power position of the female in this situation, it shows that the female is the most crucial member of the clutch as the ‘queen’ of this clutch. I found this as, ‘the most impressive showing of matriarchy’ because Clownfish are such small and vulnerable animals, but they are part of the few groups that show the power of matriarchy, which makes them powerful showing that even in the smallest species matriarchy is important and something that should be derivative within other species.