When most people think of engineering, many consider it a field dominated by men. However, Rachael Born and Xiaonan Zhao prove that women are successful engineers as well. As a graduate and PhD student at Virginia Tech, respectively, the two women, along with their team, entered Google’s Little Box Challenge. The goal of the competition was to shrink the size of an inverter as much as possible. Among the eighteen teams who made it past the preliminary rounds, Born and Zhao were the only two women. In the end, only three teams met the challenge, with Virginia Tech’s Future Energy Electronics Center as one.
Where did you hear about Google’s Little Box Challenge?
Xiaonan Zhao: It’s a world famous activity for power electronics, so everyone knows it.
Rachael Born: Our advisor [Dr. Jason Lai] wanted us to enter it. He even developed a course around it for graduate students. There were only six of us.
What were some of the challenges you faced going through the design process?
XZ: It is a challenge. Traditionally, a two kilowatt inverter is like a cooler. For this competition, the smaller the better. To increase the power density, you needed to consider the circuit strategy.
RB: Circuit strategy means lots of things. Two kilowatts is an average home installation.
How big was the inverter you created?
RB: We thought it was 28.8 inches cubed but Google measured 29.1 inches cubed. It’s normally the size of the cooler, like Xiaonan said, and we made it the size of a really tiny shoebox.
How long did it take you to make the inverter?
XZ: One year.
RB: We heard about the competition last summer [2014] and that’s when we started. We had to submit a technical report—it’s literally four pages to summarize everything you’ve done. And that’s how they judged you. Over one hundred teams submitted their four pages, and they selected eighteen to submit hardware. We submitted the hardware in October.
XZ: We found out we placed at the end of February.
RB: So out of all of the eighteen teams, only the three finalists passed all of Google’s requirements. Everyone else failed at some point. That includes one hundred hours of running the inverter straight. We got third because we had the largest volume. The second place team was Schneider Electric, which is a thirty-or-forty-billion-dollar engineering company.
XZ: Most of the work was done by the two of us and another guy. When they introduced us as graduate students, [the other teams] were all surprised and excited.
What goals did you set going into the competition?
RB: We wanted to win (laughs) because the prize is a million dollars. We wanted to see if we could do it—it was a pretty ambitious goal that [Google] set.
Did you face any challenges being the only two women out of the entire eighteen teams?
RB: I wouldn’t say there were challenges because we were women, but when we went to Colorado to drop off the prototype that was the first time where we saw everyone else who was in the competition. When we were in the room, we were the only students and we were the only women. There were other universities that entered, but they didn’t send their students to drop off the actual inverter.
What short and long term career goals do you have with such early achievements?
XZ: The long term is to graduate, get my PhD degree and get a job here. It’s simple!
RB: I’m a master student so I’m graduating in May. And now I’m looking for a job.
Since March is National Women’s History month, would you mind sharing which women inspire you the most?
RB: Oh that’s hard.
XZ: Obama’s mother.
RB: Obama’s mother? Who’s Obama’s mother?
XZ: She’s a great mother.
RB: I like that that’s the first person that came to mind.
XZ: Oh also Hillary Clinton. I admire her leadership.
RB: For me, I would say Eleanor Roosevelt. Because if you look at her past she was very shy. She was opinionated and well learned, but she didn’t really get her voice until later in life. Then she used it really, really effectively. I admire that.
Do you have any advice for female engineers in the field?
XZ: Be confident. We are equal to the men. We are hardworking, able to think deeply.
RB: Engineering in general can be intimidating. Like in our field especially, there’s just a lot of complicated terms that people throw around and once you understand it, it’s not very complicated. Don’t be intimidated and don’t be afraid to ask questions.
Anything else you would like to share?
RB: Electrical engineering is cool! More girls should do it so we’re not alone.
XZ: I agree with her.