In the lead up to the 2016 Scottish Space School @ Strathclyde, the Faculty of Engineering had the pleasure of working with the Baird of Bute Society to launch the first Leitch Space Scholarship.  The scholarship would be awarded to one of the 100 students who attended the 2016 Space School, and the recipient would be chosen based on their performance, attitude and skills during the week. 

The recipient of the award and the first Leitch Space Scholar selected was Brooklyn Adkins from St Paul’s Secondary School in Glasgow.  As part of the award, Brooklyn was offered a one week placement at Glasgow-based Clyde Space Ltd.  Clyde Space is recognised as a world-leading innovator and supplier of CubeSats and small satellite systems and Brooklyn welcomed the opportunity to find out more about their expertise and what it feels like to work in the Space industry in Scotland.

Commenting on her placement Brooklyn said: “During my week at Clyde Space, the Head of Engineering, Mark Arthur, gave myself and another work placement candidate the hefty task of creating an info graphic and presentation on Clyde Space’s 3u CubeSat.  This would then be presented to some of Clyde Space’s senior staff at the end of the week.

“We worked closely with Clyde Space engineers to research the sat itself, and to create the info graphic. One of the main criteria was to make it accurate, yet simple enough for the average consumer to understand, which was achieved brilliantly according to the Vice President of Engineering, Andrew Strain.

“We worked with different engineers at Clyde Space to see how each individual part of the satellite operated and how we could present this information in our end of placement presentation, and without their help, we would have crumbled after the second day!

“My favourite part of the week was certainly a tour of Clyde Space’s clean room. This is where you can see satellites being built, up close and personal.

“For me, the benefits of this week were being able to see an average day in the life of an engineer in their working environment and also seeing pieces of equipment in action that I would never have got to see otherwise.  It was also great to meet the many talented people who work at the company.

“The whole experience has really solidified my intention to become an engineer!”

The Baird of Bute Society was established to honour the historic achievements of Andrew Baird, a humble Bute blacksmith who, in 1910, had a dream and built an airplane which he used to record the first attempted all Scottish heavier than air powered flight. Not a long or well controlled historic attempt, but the realisation of a dream.

The Society uses his example to inspire the youth of Scotland to aspire to achievement in their lives through school Programmes and Scholarships, including the annual national Baird Canadian Science Scholarships.

Annually, the Society awards its Scottish Innovation and Scottish Aviation Awards to inspirational great Scots who have been successful in their careers and lives.

This new Baird of Bute Leitch Space Scholarship recognises Dr William Leitch, another inspiring Scot from the Isle of Bute, who in the 1860's in his scientific writings proposed that propulsion in space was best achieved by the use of rocket power - many decades ahead of Goddard and the others previously credited.

The Society was very pleased to have Brooklyn Adkins as the first recipient of this exciting new Scholarship and on September 9th recognised her at their annual Awards Dinner on the Isle of Bute hosted by its Patron Lord Smith of Kelvin.