NC State’s College of Engineering is one of the top engineering schools in the United States. Despite its popularity, however, it’s very easy for students to forget the full applications of engineering. Luckily, Laura Bottomley, director of Women in Engineering and The Engineering Place, and Nehemiah Mabry, a civil engineering grad, plan to show how diverse its implementation can be with their new series.
Engineering Everywhere is a video miniseries featured on NC State’s YouTube channel that is written and hosted by Bottomley and directed by Mabry along with his digital media company, STEMedia. The series features short videos showcasing engineering’s uses in everyday life. The first episode was uploaded Oct. 3, 2018, with the next planned for a December release.
Mabry and Bottomley, who had known each other since the former was an undergrad, had desired to work together on a project for the outreach program for some time.
“She and I are people who do a lot of engineering outreach,” Mabry said, “so it was always recommended that the two of us get together and work on something. When she had the idea for this, we decided to give it a shot.”
Bottomley has worked in engineering outreach programs for close to 20 years, and as the current director of The Engineering Place for K-20 Engineering as well as the Women in Engineering and K-12 Outreach programs, she’s always looking for new ways to expand her audience.
“In the years I’ve been working with the engineering outreach, one of the biggest challenges is getting people to understand how varied it is,” Bottomley said. “I wanted a way to show everyone that engineering really is everywhere around us.”
The focus of the first episode — the tread patterns in shoes — is one that Bottomley frequently presents to younger students to get their attention. With this idea, all they needed to do was decide how to translate it into video format.
Bottomley and mabry had a brainstorming session with Jennifer Cox, the special assistant to the dean of engineering, where they decided on Talley Student Union as the filming location. The video concepts were brought up by Mabry, while Bottomley handled all of the educational concepts.
“I wrote out an outline on my own and showed [Bottomley],” Mabry said. “She thought it was cool, so we set a date to film it, then I got my people and some students involved.”
Despite having a basic outline and script written out, Bottomley hardly relied on it. Every second she was on-screen was improvised, including the explanations of the tread patterns.
“I had talked to some students a few minutes before we started filming to ask if we could use their shoes,” Bottomley said. “The four students had their shoes, and I brought a dance shoe from home because I didn’t think anyone would have one with them.”
While the group was brainstorming, Mabry suggested that the episodes be kept relatively short so they can keep the attention of audiences outside of engineering students.
“I probably could have talked for at least 20 minutes straight if I wanted,” Bottomley said, “but [Mabry] suggested that we keep it at about three minutes since that’s about how long most people’s attention spans would last.”
Despite its short length, the series will not be running on a weekly schedule. According to Bottomley, the first episode alone cost about $5000 to produce. While there’s no hard date for the next release, the duo has a few ideas in store for future episodes.
“We don’t know exactly how many episodes we’ll do,” Bottomley said. “It’s hard to make them due to funding and needing everyone’s schedules to align, but we’ll keep working on them as long as we’re allowed to.”
To watch the first episode of Bottomley’s Engineering Everywhere, find it on NC State’s YouTube channel, and keep an eye out for the next episode, which will be releasing in the coming winter season.
