Enginuity day is an annual event organised by the Women in Engineering, University of Auckland to inspire young women to consider careers in engineering and to discover what it is like to study engineering at the University of Auckland. This year, the event was held on 4-5 July at City campus and we had 73 high school female students joining the event.

On 4 July, Chemmat held their hands-on and fun activities in Food Processing, Separation Process and Biomaterials for Year 13 high school girls.

One of the activities was processing chocolate noodles by Drs Jenny Malmstrom and Kelly Burrowes using a custom made extruder built by Technician Raymond Hoffman, which allowed students to relate the chocolate composition, texture and its ability to be extruded.

The second activity involved transforming dirty water to clean water with membrane separation technology by Dr Filicia Wicaksana and Professional Teaching Fellow Amanda DiIenno. Students had a hands-on experience to build a simple water filtration system using common materials such as sand, cotton, gravel and activated carbon. They also learned how membrane technology could be used for water filtration.

Our third activity was making colourful alginate worms by Drs Sophia Rodrigues, Josh Workman and Technician Peter Martin, to demonstrate cross-linking in hydrogels for use in cartilage replacement and food items. There was also an informative presentation by Associate Professor Ashvin Thambyah, Head of Department, covering Chemmat specialisation, pathways and possible careers.