Stuart Nathan
Features editor
A new BBC programme may have found the ideal formula to make engineering attractive

Regular readers might remember that I keep a keen eye on media portrayals of engineering and technology, both fictional and real. In general, I prefer to praise those who get it right rather than criticise those who get it wrong; and I’m delighted to say that the BBC programme Big Life Fix with Simon Reeve gets it right to a degree that I think may be almost unprecedented.
Two editions of the programme have already been transmitted with the third and final instalment screened tonight at 9 PM on BBC2. With my usual highly scientific method of gauging reaction to such things (asking friends, family and colleagues) it appears that the series has escaped the notice of many; so if any readers have also missed it, the premise of the series is as follows. The programme makers have assembled a team of seven engineers, referred to variously as “makers”, “inventors” and simply “experts”, who in each episode are presented with three problems facing individuals or communities, and tasked with coming up with a technological solution which they then build and present to their “clients”.
So far in the series, we have seen the team tackle the problems of four people facing physical disability of some sort; a young man named James Dunn who suffers from a skin condition caused by collagen deficiency which causes him intense pain and has fused his fingers together, preventing him from using his camera, a vital creative outlet and source of distraction from his condition; Emma Lawton, a designer with Parkinson’s disease which was preventing her from drawing or writing; Oscar Johnson, a teenage boy born with no hands or feet, who dearly wanted to be able to ride a bike to spend time with his friends; and Graham, who has been robbed of his speech and much of his movement by a severe stroke and struggles to communicate with his wife and family.
Two other projects involve communities; one, the remote village of Staylittle in Wales, where communication is hampered by appalling phone reception and almost non-existent Internet; the other, a group of farmers in Yorkshire who are plagued by sheep rustling.
The series is notable for the accurate way in which it portrays engineering projects. We see the experts going to visit the “participants”, as the production company called them, receiving a detailed briefing and asking questions, then returning to their base (a “maker space” in Bethnal Green) and discussing the problem among the team who bring the different skills to bear.

We are talked through how the project leader comes up with ideas for the solution, shown the initial prototype phase and its presentation to the participant, shown how more often than not this phase does not work; taken back to base for a rethink and rebuild, and then shown the final result and the participant’s reaction.
During this process, we get to know the team a little; they are a notably diverse bunch, mostly young (mid 30s in general), with both male and female participants and from a variety of backgrounds. They include an industrial designer, an electronics specialist, a materials scientist, a design strategist and others who all bring their unique viewpoints to bear on their projects.
Series producer-director Tom Watt-Smith, from production company Studio Lambert, which produced Big Life Fix for the BBC, told The Engineer that this dual focus was deliberate. “We always wanted to tell these two stories in parallel: the fixers and the participants,” he said in a phone conversation. “And it was important to show how they worked, the tools they used and the way they bounce ideas off each other.”
This has the welcome effect of humanising the participants; at no point do they seem remote or disconnected, and we are also shown that they have lives outside their work (two of them had new babies at the time the series is being shot, and we see and hear them in sequences with the team). We are also told how the team’s backgrounds influence their thinking; for example, two of the fixers working on the sheep rusting project came from rural communities and were used to being on farms, while the project leader building Oscar’s bike was an enthusiastic cyclist himself.
The choice of presenter Simon Reeve, best known for travel documentaries and without a technical background himself, was taken so that viewers had an easily relatable guide to what was going on. “We thought that as we had these seven brilliant people, it was important to have somebody talking to them on the viewers’ level,” Watt-Smith explained. And Reeve does a good job, explaining complex concepts like how 3D printing works and current theories about the neurological causes of Parkinson’s disease.

It’s also oddly heartening to see the series insistence on showing us the difficulty of persuading the participants to go along with the team’s ideas, and the inevitable failure of early prototypes. “We had to get that in,” Watt-Smith said. “The team insisted, and it is such a vital part of how the project develops.”
The final reveal of the project results is an inevitably moving sequence; Emma being presented with a custom wristband containing vibrating motors that distracted her motor system from tremors and allowed her to write her name and draw a straight line freehand for the first time in six years was a tearjerker, as was Graham using a touchscreen pad triggering samples of his own voice (gleaned from long forgotten home videos) and hilariously profane samples from television shows to communicate with his wife. James’s camera, equipped with a motorised system to control zoom and focus, linked to his wheelchair battery and controlled via tablet app which did not need him to drag his fingers across the screen was another sublime television moment.
“We are considering showing fewer projects per episode in the next series,” Watt-Smith said. “We have to cut such a lot out, and it might be good to let the stories breathe a little.” The format of three stories per episode was formulated to allow some time away from the medical oriented projects, which the team affords were rather intense to watch, but were chosen for the focus of the project because they are easy to relate to and emotionally involving for viewers and participants.
It was noticeable (to me, at least) that the team is sparing with the terms engineer and engineering, but Watt-Smith told me this was not deliberate. “we asked the team how they would like us to describe them,” he said. “There certainly wasn’t a feeling that engineering wasn’t sexy enough for us to talk about.”
What struck me immediately was that a young person watching the series might instantly think “that looks really cool, I want to do that.” This was borne out watching Channel 4’s people-watching-TV series Gogglebox, where one of the younger participants commented “that must be the best job in the world, coming up with ideas and helping people like that.”
Watt-Smith was open to the idea of producing information packs for teachers to accompany subsequent series, so they can advise any students thinking likewise on how they can find out more about engineering and training. In the meantime, the BBC’s webpage for the series has links to online resources.
Unfortunately, most of the daily newspapers have ignored the programme. Some of the fixes have made it onto the news pages, but the only review I have seen depressingly focused on whether the team had “mad inventor hair”. For the record, only two of them do, and that’s a stretch for one of those. But how depressing that the instinct of the reviewer (let’s name and shame, it was in the Daily Telegraph) was to stereotype rather than to look at the team’s achievement.
I would urge any readers to catch the final instalment of the show tonight, and to keep an eye out for its return, which has been confirmed by the BBC.
I am unfortunate, it would appear, as I am usually out on Wednesday nights. but now I will go on line and have a watch. Anything that puts engineering in a good light and not that of the grubby mechanic in a shed (no offence they’re great too) has to be good for the future of engineering.
We make ingenious, elegant solutions to problems, it’s just a shame that we’re lumbered with the name ‘engineer’, which has undertones of engines, oil and dirt in Britain. I’ll catch the show on the I player.
pay Engineers the same rate as other trades and we might have less trouble recruiting
Or maybe the same rate as other professions?
Since when has being an Engineer been a trade?
It is a Profession without whom the modern way of life would be possible.
Alex beat me to it!-are we Ingenious Engineers or mucky engineer with rag and oily overalls?
“that must be the best job in the world, coming up with ideas and helping people like that.”
So presumably the worst is designing and building the weapons which might put humans in harm’s way , requiring the efforts of those ‘saints’ shown in this excellent programme?
That’s your presumption, Mike.
Mike
If you are both of the above that you mention and can assemble what you design you not a much better engineer for it? So isn’t their a gradient to who you might call an Engineer. An experienced Tool Maker who can turn his hand to most things or perhaps a HNC/HND Design draughtsman who had come up through the ranks. are very capable. On the other hand a Graduate Engineer may gain very good theoretic understanding of engineering subject matter, but lack the practical knowledge to make good designs . An Engineer who possesses both the intellect and the skills is truly an Engineer, but our educational systems don’t produce such rounded individuals. Engineers coming into industry directly from university with little practical training, face a large learning curve that many don’t manage to master and make poorer Engineers for it, but can still benefit from the title. Where many would be happy to take the title of ‘Engineer’ from the former.
Watched the final programme as our Editor suggested: amazing and humbling to be associated (via our shared knowledge of and skill in manipulating Nature’s laws) with the skill and dedication and abilities of those portrayed. I also watched the Chernobyl reactor encasing piece: I repeat the comment above. Of course we have been regularly up-dated by our illustrious journal during the ‘build’ but a remarkable example of skill and dedication and a multi-national collaboration(sp?) of ability. BLUETIT: Before Leaping, Understand Everything, Think it Through? Seems to come naturally to Engineers (of all disciplines and Nations). I hesitate to point this out : Chernobyl was an accident (albeit one waiting to happen): it has taked (and will take) decades to contain, and centuries to deal with. Ane there are still folk prepared to consider the preparation and use of these nefarious systems of destruction ‘for real’.
I can only suggest compulsary watching (and exposure?) for all -be they military, politicians or even journalists…- who are on that side of the equation?
I apologise for the misspellings and grammer/typos in my post above. Hurriedly tapped out in my lunch break.
**Identity is the real issue to be addressed**
It is very difficult to be critical of this program and as such I don’t and it does make quite good ‘TV’. However I don’t think it is going to help the general perception of Engineering as a whole. By demonstrating the ‘humanizing’ of engineering in what is a set of cases of essentially Industrial Design (or just ‘Design’) projects, applying the fruits of (unseen) back room ‘boffin’ technologies which occur outside the public eye and are never likely to excite the majority of the public, no matter how ‘hard’ and dependent on intellectual skills we as readers of the Engineer know are required to develop them, the real problems are evaded.
By the use of a group of people at the ‘creatives’ end of Engineering it evades the fact that 90+ percent of Engineering is under the hood stuff, from developing the materials for use in the ubiquitous 3Dprinter to the servo motors and servo control systems they require, before we even start on electrical power generation.
Perhaps a real analysis of the problems engineering in the UK faces might start from an understanding that engineering products and large scale organisations are at core based around hierarchies (of course handling constraints of cost materials and nature within those hierarchies- that IS IMO Engineering). The outside world in the ‘WEST’ has culturally rejected such arrangements (although it still needs them) and people largely don’t want to be identified or associated with them as professional careers for various but related reasons – but I want to ‘be my own boss/in control of my own destiny in a creative environment’ might be one of them.
It may be only one aspect – but understanding Identity Politics (in so far as “I am defined by my culturally influenced beliefs as that includes not being a ‘cog in the machine'”) is one area that might shed some light on the real and deep problems with the Public perception of engineering.
Just been to Germany. Seen some girl apprentices in the subway who clearly worked in “boys’ jobs” such as mason and joiner.
As a mature student (having already completed a 5 year mechanical engineering apprenticeship and 5 years in a drawing office) I attended a dinner party in westminster . Lots of MPs , ministers , stockbrokers, university dons etc most with their wives . I was in a group and they were talking ‘shop’ I was asked what I did , I said I was a designer. They were very interested in me then, especially the women. After most of them had told me who they knew in the design world Lauren, Versace, Westwood Lagerfield and their premises. They discussed how much they paid for their clothes, handbags etc; I kept nodding politely (I was staggered at the prices – 3 months of my salary for the price of a handbag!) They finally asked me what I designed. “Machines and test rigs to make car components” ( I even mentioned clients like Ferrari , Jaguar, Aston Martin but to no avail). Unsurprisingly the group all drifted away from me so I helped myself to another couple of glasses of Moet and left to rejoin the real world. Frighteningly these people were the policy and decision makers for the country, it was about the time that the de-industrialisation of Britain was taking place. I won’t mention the prime ministers name at the time but I believe she was the worst .. oh that’s a bit of a give away !
Interesting to read the comments, possibly as much as the rather good article.
I googled the program tonight, because I’ve been working on copying the “Emma” watch mentioned above. I’ve been in brief contact with Emma, the design engineer Hiayan through Twitter, and also with the ReMap people, who are the “behind the scenes” backup people for after the TV cameras have moved on, who tend to be retired engineers!
I’m a science and engineering graduate, and after some years I came to agree with Mike Blamey about (not) working for a defence manufacturer, so became a locksmith – which is blue collar, but as skilled as anything else if you do it right – and lock manufacturer (Black collars!) and later started a couple of Makerspaces.
There is no path to “becoming” a “proper” engineer any more. The skilled jobs like a metal turner or, even more specialist, a screw thread cutter have been replaced by CNC machines. There is no going back. Not at anything approaching a viable price, anyway! You’ll never get an apprenticeship in a small local fabricator, because they don’t have the margins to carry the dead weight while you learn, and mostly they don’t need more staff. The local metal work place (actual high tolerance engineering, rather than the fabricators) used to have over 70 staff. Now, there are two men! They turn over slightly more now than then, so you can imagine they are getting paid rather well, as the CNC machines carry out the other 70 men’s tasks and are occasionally prodded.
Likewise, with products so cheap to make and replace, we have become a throwaway society. I pick locks because it is a pride in my skill, but many locksmiths make more by drilling and replacement – you sell an extra lock! And compared to the labour rate, it’s quite worthwhile.
Yes, we have “de-industrialised” to a degree, but there are still areas which are doing pretty well. With a bit of actual government support they might even thrive – though Brexit will likely put an end to that dream. I might be wrong though – if all the Big Finance stuff leaves (They just pack up their laptops and go) only the manufacturing will be left (Moving a 30 ton press is a big job) {Don’t mention the farmers – without the EU Common Agricultural Policy they’ll be utterly ruined by cheap overseas competition, never mind the tariffs!}
My point… Where was it? Oh yes. Look out your local Hackerspace or Makerspace. Go along and see what a difference having “the means of production” makes to people. It’s massive. The speed at which things can be made now is head spinning – design to finished article in under 3 hours is easily possible on even semi-complex designs, with a bit of luck and care.
I cloned the “Emma” in about 12 hours of hard work, found it didn’t work when tested on the testee, made it cruder and simpler to the degree I could’ve made it in two hours, and lo! It worked like magic.
Next, I need to turn it into a viable product. And yes, that’s engineering too.
It isn’t any good being a super specialist in any area any more – except perhaps welding, and even that is replaced by robots on mass production – instead you need to have everything, from the basic idea to the finished saleable product.
(And I’m going to stop now, before I start on about how the standards for an “acceptable product” have also spiralled insanely!)