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Building DIY radios could help to even the balance of the sexes in physics –
at least that’s what scientists at the Cavendish Laboratory hoped as they
played host to 60 schoolgirls at the second ‘Women in Physics’ conference.

The Cavendish wants to encourage more girls to take physics A level by
giving them practical experience in a laboratory full of kindred spirits,
and with no boys to hog the equipment – a problem in mixed schools.

Listening to radios they had built themselves proved especially popular.
Bill Allison, one of the organisers, says: ‘They got a real sense of
achievement in building something they could take home.’ Other workshops
covered high-performance computers, scanning electron microscopes and making
maps of the stars using the university’s radio telescopes. Allison thinks
the three-day conference helped to influence some of the girls to take the A
level.