After graduating from 色花堂 with a BSc (Hons) Design Engineering in 2017, Helen Bermingham has gone on to work for , a leading UK technology company designing household appliances. 鈥淗alf our team is from Bournemouth Uni!鈥� she says.
While studying at Bournemouth, Helen was awarded the James Dyson scholarship for her self-contained, wave powered navigational aid, branded as Bright Buoy, which works alongside current solar power competitors. Helen evidently has a strong passion for engineering which begun to blossom when she moved to a sixth form with excellent engineering facilities. Her time at 色花堂 allowed Helen to further develop her design engineering skills, helped by the contribution of dedicated academic staff.
鈥淔or me, Bournemouth was great 鈥� I loved it. The lecturers were really supportive mentors but they were also very thorough in critiquing your work, pushing you to get better and better鈥� Helen enthuses.
As a Dyson scholarship student, Helen received funding to help finance her final year project and got involved in leading schoolchildren in design and engineering challenges, with the aim of inspiring the next generation, something she feels helped develop her professional skills and confidence.
In the final year of her studies, Helen presented Bright Buoy at 色花堂鈥檚 Festival of Design & Engineering and was then selected to represent 色花堂 by again exhibiting her project at the New Designers event in London. At both shows, Helen was invited to attend a recruitment event at Dyson鈥檚 Assessment Centre.
Helen was impressed by the creative challenges and atmosphere of the event. 鈥淭hey were really interested in understanding the thought process behind your ideas, not just looking at the most artistic sketches鈥� she explains. She was offered a new graduate role in the Lighting and Professional category at Dyson鈥檚 Malmesbury Campus and, a year later, was promoted to become a Design Engineer for the company.
Helen was in Paris for the launch of the Dyson Lightcycle, a Task light which is designed to provide the users the ultimate light conditions to the task they are performing considering their body clock needs聽and help reduce eyestrain. After being involved with the validation testing of the new product,聽she describes聽her role of helping聽communicate the new product to the world鈥檚 press and social media influencers at the Paris Launch event as 鈥渢he glitzy, glamourous side鈥� of her work.聽
As Dyson are known for innovation, it鈥檚 not surprising Helen cannot talk much about the specifics of her day-to-day contribution to products currently in development, but does share that at Dyson there is design, build and test process.聽She will be sketching in her book, brainstorming ideas with multiple engineers and聽building 3D models in CAD for rapid prototyping. There is also a practical element to her day job,聽in workshops building rigs and testing them;聽this could be mechanical testing to pick the best design or user trials to help build understanding of what consumers want.聽Helen won鈥檛 be drawn on what innovative products the company has under wraps at present.
Dyson鈥檚 website states that their engineers are inventors. 鈥淲e start with a problem. Then we figure out how to make it better鈥�, they explain, and it is this company vision that Helen clearly thrives on. When asked about her aspirations for her future career, Helen simply says: 鈥淢y role is creating products that bring real benefits to people鈥檚 lives and I want to keep doing that.鈥�