Real-world applications and hands-on work are nothing new to the senior engineering students at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS). In fact, such work is a requirement to graduate.

However, not content with simply earning their required credits, this semester’s cohort will take their work one step further as they ring in the new year.

First, a group of engineering students will travel to Africa at the end of the month to install an originally designed water pump for a Ugandan village with limited access to clean water for their Senior Design Project.

Then, five of these six students, who are also members of the UCCS Society of Women Engineers, will travel to an all-girls school in Nairobi, Kenya, to promote science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education, female representation in this workforce and encourage their own pursuits.

“It’d be nice to know that we’re maybe kind of breaking down barriers of what those high school girls think that engineers have to be like and showing them that they can be themselves and follow the career path that they want,” said club member Samantha Gormley.  

Always excelling in math and robotics, Gormley pursued engineering from an early age, where she recalled being told “straight out the womb” that there was a need for more female engineers. In the engineering classes she took during high school, she was often the only girl.

“Like freshman year, it was me and my best friend in an engineering class with a hundred percent dudes,” she said. “But luckily, it never deterred me in any way. And I just love engineering, so I stuck with it and I found my niche community of engineering women, and it’s been great.”

The UCCS Society of Women Engineers club is an extension of a larger mission across the world. The Society of Women Engineers is an international non-profit organization that has empowered women to succeed in engineering careers since 1950.

The U.S. Department of Labor reported that women accounted for only 26% of the country’s STEM workforce in 2023. When narrowed to just engineers, this percentage dropped to 16%.

Recently, the club promoted itself, its work and its field on a more local level as one of the entrants in the Manitou Springs Emma Crawford coffin race, where they designed and built an aerospace-inspired boxcar racer to spread awareness for female engineers. They’ve also hosted middle school classes to demonstrate engineering projects and concepts.

Ellen Gernert said she’s already felt a unique bond between her fellow club members that goes beyond some perceived stereotypes of engineers, by and large.

“Coming into university, I thought I would be like one of two girls, and everyone’s gonna be weird or antisocial,” she said. “But, honestly, I enjoy my engineering friends as much as anyone I’ve met, and I’m just so happy I chose this field and this school.”

First stop: Lake Bunyoni

The students’ senior design project builds off an existing water pump installed by UCCS engineering students two years ago. While the original pump is still in use by a local community near the lake, this year’s students plan to refine the original system to increase its efficiency and longevity.

Dr. Peter Gorder, chair of UCCS’s Mechanical and Aerospace Department and Senior Design Project Director, has been with the university for 25 years and has consistently traveled to Africa over the years for various causes. He said this has allowed students to apply their own knowledge and designs while they continue to learn from a foreign culture.

“My philosophy is you’ve got three different ways to help people who need help: one is to do it to them, another is do it for them, which is better because you can at least understand what their needs really are — but the best, most sustainable way is to do it with them,” he said.

The original pump project was selected by students when a need was identified for a Ugandan farm located near Lake Bunyoni that lacks access to electrical or diesel power. Since the village is located at the top of a mountain and the lake is down its slope, students determined how to efficiently and sustainably supply them with irrigation and drinking water. The solution was a manual water pump, known as a Wirtz pump, that uses wooden spokes to rotate coiled tubing through the water, which then travels uphill for farmers to access.

Now, students will return to the pump and alter the original design to attach a funnel to increase intake volume, add a backflow valve, replace the wooden structure with water-resistant polyvinyl chloride, and install a new elbow fitting to reduce the amount of stagnant water currently entering the supply. The filtered water will then provide a neighborhood elementary school with accessible drinking water.

Gernert said that one of her friends was part of the original pump project, and when the possibility presented itself for her to do this work, she jumped at the opportunity to do meaningful work for a community in need.

“She just told me about all the stories and showed me pictures and videos and I was like, ‘I want to do that, I need to do that,’” she said. “Even before anything was presented to us, I got my passport renewed last year.”

Next stop: Nairobi

Separate from the project, five of the six team members who are also members of the UCCS Society of Women Engineers will then pivot to Nairobi, Kenya, to showcase their work and share their stories as women engineering students at the Kibera Girls Soccer Academy.

Because of Dr. Gorder’s relationships with organizations throughout Africa, the option presented itself for the students to expand their work beyond Uganda. Familiar with the end-of-semester event at the Nairobi school, he asked if his students would be interested in extending their trip.

“And I think we all just said yes right then and there,” Gernert said.

Because the senior design project’s partnering sponsor, the Global Livingston Institute, is covering expenses for only the Uganda travelling, the club has been raising funds to offset the costs to and from Kenya through a GoFundMe page.

The ladies will facilitate activities with the girls that will include building functional, miniature Wirtz pumps that will resemble the one they will have just completed in Uganda.

Gernert said that, while they intend to share their own experiences in building the pump and demonstrate real-world innovation and problem-solving, their main goal is to spend enough time with the high schoolers to answer their questions, build relationships and inspire confidence.

“I think the project itself is a fun little activity to do, but I think ultimately, us just being there is very important,” she said.

Gorder noted an even greater need for women engineers in this part of the world, with Kibera being the largest slum in Africa and families needing to pay for their children to attend secondary school. Due to these socioeconomic factors, young girls are often encouraged to care for their families rather than pursue an education or career.

“So, having female students pretty close to their age is just a fantastic opportunity for the girls in Kibera to see themselves differently,” he said. “We can talk to them about it, their teachers can talk to them about it, but it’s different to see other young women who are exploring a career path.”