{"id":75,"date":"2014-05-01T17:43:11","date_gmt":"2014-05-01T17:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/visions\/?p=75"},"modified":"2018-02-08T13:38:22","modified_gmt":"2018-02-08T13:38:22","slug":"engineering-under-pressure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/visions\/engineering-under-pressure\/","title":{"rendered":"Engineering under pressure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alumna finishes second on engineering reality TV show and shows women can succeed in engineering.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Discovery<\/a><\/p>\n

Skills that Amy (McDow) Elliott learned in Tennessee Tech University\u2019s mechanical engineering labs and classrooms helped her to earn a co-op position in NASA Marshall Space Flight Center\u2019s machine shop and to develop an interest in additive manufacturing, or 3-D printing.<\/p>\n

Her academic achievements at Tech helped the Fayetteville native get into a doctoral program at Virginia Tech, where her dissertation focuses on protecting intellectual property in a world where anything can be quickly and easily replicated on a 3-D printer. Her dissertation helped her land a job in Oak Ridge National Laboratory\u2019s additive manufacturing center.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, casting directors of the Discovery Channel show \u201cThe Big Brain Theory: Pure Genius\u201d selected her, in part, because of the hands-on experience she got at Tech. She finished second among the reality show\u2019s participants and was team captain on five of the show\u2019s eight episodes, more than any of the other nine contestants.<\/p>\n

\"Discovery<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really tough but really fun and a great educational opportunity,\u201d said Elliott, who graduated from Tech with a bachelor\u2019s degree in mechanical engineering in 2009. \u201cIt was the opportunity of a lifetime, so I just went for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For seven weeks, Elliott and the nine other contestants lived in front of TV cameras in a house in California. Though the engineering challenges were difficult, the hardest part for Elliott was being away from her husband, Sam Elliott, of Cleveland Tenn., a manufacturing and industrial engineering (now called manufacturing and engineering technology) major whom she met her freshman year at Tech.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were in the same intro to engineering class, and we were on a team that had to design a robot. We dominated,\u201d she said. \u201cThen we didn\u2019t see each other until senior year. I was hand-picked to be the captain of the moonbuggy team, and he was handpicked to be the project manager. We worked really well together and got married.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their experience on the moonbuggy team is one of Elliott\u2019s fondest memories of her time at Tech. She and her teammates were new to the competition, though the university has had a moonbuggy team for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best moment was getting to the awards and completely dominating,\u201d Elliott said. \u201cWe won in safety, in design and in innovation. That was absolutely my best moment at Tech.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elliott was also on Tech\u2019s Baja SAE team. She is in the driver\u2019s seat on a Wheaties box that can still be found in several offices around campus. In its nearly 40-year history on campus, the Baja team has finished in the top 10 in about 80 percent of its competitions, making it the most decorated team in the U.S.<\/p>\n

\"Amy-Baja\"<\/a>
Elliott sits in the Baja SAE car. This photo graced to cover of a Wheaties box.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While at Tech, Elliott was also involved in the Society of Women Engineers and Engineering a Future, a program designed to introduce young girls to engineering fields. Though women are still relatively rare in the discipline, Elliott is part of a growing effort to change that by making the field more appealing to women.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs an engineer, it\u2019s normal to be with mostly men,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s starting to change now, which is awesome. I love that I can help young girls figure out their path and warn them, \u2018It\u2019s OK to fail; don\u2019t get down on yourself.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really glad I can share my experience with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Being one of the few women available to audition for \u201cThe Big Brain Theory,\u201d she said, may have helped her get cast. She was one of two women in the competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said it was really hard for them to find female engineers who had the experience and the knowledge and could take seven weeks off their life to do this,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s one of the reasons it worked out for me; I\u2019m in grad school so I don\u2019t have to worry about work leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because hands-on learning experiences at Tech and after have been so important to her maturation as an engineer, Elliott is working to help her field move away from being so theory-based and to include more physical work in the classroom. She recently gave a TED Talk, part of a series of lectures featuring \u201cideas worth spreading\u201d about how engineering and manufacturing processes are inseparable, and engineers must approach them as parts of a whole.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t understand the media, you can\u2019t understand what its possibilities are,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s like asking an artist to create a piece of art without ever touching the medium.\u201d<\/p>\n

After completing her dissertation at Virginia Tech, she says that she and Sam hope to open a maker\u2019s space to \u201cspread the gospel of engineering,\u201d where people ranging from weekend hobbyists to professional engineers can come to use machining equipment.<\/p>\n

While she says she never intends to be part of another reality show, she hopes \u201cBig Brain Theory\u201d will be renewed. She said she would like to return as a guest judge or a consultant.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone always has that secret hope that the skills they\u2019ve gained and the people they\u2019ve met will culminate in a television debut, but I never had it as a goal,\u201d said Elliott. \u201cI\u2019m really glad I got the opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alumna finishes second on engineering reality TV show and shows women can succeed in engineering. Skills that Amy (McDow) Elliott learned in Tennessee Tech University\u2019s mechanical engineering labs and classrooms helped her to earn a co-op position in NASA Marshall Space Flight Center\u2019s machine shop and to develop an interest in additive manufacturing, or 3-D […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":108,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-75","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spring14"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/visions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/visions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/visions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/visions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/visions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/visions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1220,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/visions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions\/1220"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/visions\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/visions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/visions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/visions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}