Engineering news
Ana Fernandez always wanted to become an engineer, but it was her curiosity, determination and "a little help from mum" that helped her to fulfil her lifelong ambition.
Fernandez didn't have any engineers in her family but says she had always been curious to find out how things work. "I was always building things, taking them apart and putting different parts together. I preferred spending one hour solving a problem than one hour studying history text."
At age 26 Fernandez is now a fully qualified mechanical engineer with three degrees behind her, and has begun her first role designing supersize machines for wood chipping and shredding company, Timberwolf.
Fernandez explains that her time studying at Dundalk Institute of Technology in Ireland helped her to move into her current role. "After studying Industrial Design and Product Development at the Universidad de Extremadura, near my hometown in Spain I got an Erasmus grant to study Mechanical Engineering at the Dundalk Institute of Technology in Ireland," she explains. "After my grades in Mechanical Engineering, Dundalk offered me to stay on for an Engineering Entrepreneur course Bsc (hons), which was all about furthering your ideas. I knew how to design using engineering forces and masses, but often engineers do not know how to sell our ideas. So this course helped me develop an idea from scratch."
Fernandez is currently designing and building a new "supersize" machine for Timberwolf that will be launched in 2016. She says: "We are a relatively small company, which means I get to do everything, designing, testing, analysis and Finite Element Analysis simulation."
While she enjoys working in the engineering sector Fernandez admits it can sometimes be a challenge being the only woman in the room but stresses this doesn't put her off. "There are now two female engineers in the company which is really good and I have a lot of male friends," she says. "At some point you have to decide to go for it. It doesn’t matter whether you are male or female. If it is something you enjoy, you have to take the challenge, follow your heart and start the battle!"
Case study provided by www.ntcadcam.co.uk