Abby – Mechanical Engineering
I'm Abby, a third-year Mechanical Engineering student passionate about encouraging others to explore engineering. I volunteer with Women in STEM at local schools and love being part of the supportive community here at Sheffield.
When I first started uni, I felt completely overwhelmed – but that all changed when I discovered the Diamond.
My turning point came during an introductory event at the iForge. I'd never seen a laser cutter before, but the student reps were incredibly welcoming. We watched the machines in action, and by the end I'd made my own keychain! That simple project gave me the confidence to tackle bigger challenges. Since then, I've created everything from gear systems to Halloween decorations in the iForge. Finding my confidence has been such an important part of my Diamond experience.
Building on that foundation, I've tackled some amazing projects in the Diamond. One of my proudest moments was pressure-testing part of a bottle rocket design which our group had worked on all semester, and to see it exploding at the same point as our calculations had predicted! Experiments like that showed me why all that maths actually matters
The labs have also helped me understand concepts I couldn't visualise in lectures. During a fluid dynamics lab, we added ink into a fluid stream to study its behaviour. Seeing the fluid swirl into turbulent flow made aerodynamic “flow transition” and ”flow separation” concepts finally clear to me. A teammate explained to me how the equations applied to these concepts so I can now remember them with ease.
The Diamond isn't just a workspace – it's where collaboration, creativity and community come together to help you grow, creating learning that clicks.