LUCY

ROGERS

Lucy Rogers

INTERVIEW

62

HS Morning Lucy! There’s so much

we can ask you about: the Guild of

Makers, the Internet of Things, space,

robots, dinosaurs... How did you get into

making in the first place?

LUCY ROGERS It’s really cool, isn’t it?

I’ve got every six-year-old’s dream job.

My first year at university they sold

all the lathes because they were going

more academic rather than practical.

So I didn’t learn that much hands-on

stuff at university. I had a car that I did

up and got through its MOT; I think I

learned more with my little Renault 5

than I did with the academic stuff. But

every project I did at university, where I

got the choice, I did the ones that made

things. When I got my first job I was

sponsored by Rolls-Royce. I loved the

manufacturing part much more than

the maths. The hardest maths

that I use is trigonometry. I

don’t use much more than that.

V=IR, a bit of algebra.

My PhD was using

Bernoulli’s equation, but it’s

not the maths that excites

me. For my PhD I was looking

at how bubbles are made in

firefighting equipment. So I

had all the maths of how much

air’s going to get retained, how much

surfactant do you use, how much soap

solution do you use, how much water

do you use. The bit that excited me was

making a nozzle out of Perspex and

getting a high-speed video camera and

watching bubbles being made. That

was my PhD – making bubbles. And

every project since, if I’ve been able to

make something, I have. My academic

background is all engineering, but I’m

a maker and that’s what I want to do,

that’s what I love.

HS Do you think your engineering

degree helped you to become a maker? I

know quite a few people who don’t have

degrees who don’t realise that what they

missed out on by not going to university

wasn’t that much at all. A PhD might be

a little bit different, mind.

LR A PhD is mostly about tenacity.

Knowing what I know now, I would

probably have done an apprenticeship. If

I was recommending to a 16- or 18-year-

old nowadays who wanted to go into

engineering, I’d say do an apprenticeship

(which may also lead to a degree), but

that’s just another way of doing it.

I wanted the hands-on factor, and back

then you were academic or you were

practical: you couldn’t do both. Whereas

my grandfather probably left school at 14,

didn’t have an education, but could make

clocks or model cars or steam boats or

spinning wheels and could work it all out.

He went to the Greenwich Museum where

John Harrison’s chronometer was, and

would go there with a ruler when my mum

was small. My mum was left to play on the

docks and my granddad would go in with

his ruler, take a measurement, go home,

get a bit of brass and make that piece.

He’d come back the next week, measure

another thing, come home... he made the

first quarter-scale model of Harrison’s

chronometer number 1, and it’s now in the

Science Museum.

He was making without the education.

[But] I wouldn’t be where I am without

having ‘Doctor’ in front of my name.

Because it gives that credibility.

No-one cares what the doctorate’s in: I’ve

got a PhD in bubbles. I got chartered with

the Institution of Mechanical Engineers

when I was 25, and became a fellow at

35 - ish, because I knew that I needed that

piece of paper in order to be taken credibly

in the industry, as a freelance and as a

woman as well. That was a big push in why

I did that, and it’s worked. So I have the

credibility in having a degree, but what I

learnt during the degree is not so relevant.

You learn more from your mistakes.

At university I really didn’t get on with

either the computing or the electronics,

and for my final degree I just selected the

mechanical and industrial manufacturing

segments instead. My electronics was

V=IR and that was about all I could do. I

knew where to put a resistor.

So in 2011 I started to get into Arduino

and I remember getting a music shield on

the Arduino, and the ground on [it] wasn’t

zero volts. And I blew up two of these

music shields at £30 a go, which at the

time I didn’t have, I couldn’t afford it.

I had no idea what I’d done. I didn’t

know that ground wasn’t always 0 volts,

that ground is relative.

Where do you learn that sort of stuff?

HS You learn it by blowing stuff up.

LR And by someone saying

when they make the same

mistake. Fortunately we’ve

now got Twitter, and people

can share their mishaps. “I’ve

done this – where have I gone

wrong?” There’s almost always

someone out there who’ll

respond with “ha ha, I did that

• this is what you’ve done”.

HS This seems like the perfect time to

talk about the Guild of Makers, which

has already been helping people out on

the internet before it’s even launched.

Tell us about it: what are you planning,

and why does the world need it?

LR I’ve been round Maker Faires and

you can’t get to have a go at things

because there are too many kids in the

way. It’s not politically correct to kick a

child out of the way. I wanted to have a

conference for makers who are making

professionally. So not: “You’ve never

touched a soldering iron before; this is

how we solder”, but “this is how you set

up a business”, or “this is how you go

into mass production” and all those sorts

of things.

If you wanted to set up a company

to make stuff 20 years ago you’d

”

When I got my first job

I was sponsored by

Rolls-Royce. I loved the

manufacturing part much

more than the maths

”