THREE engineers are writing tales of a girl called Scout to help get youngsters passionate about science.

Nick Parker and friends Matt Baron and John Lakin came up with the idea to launch their own business The3Enginners to tackle environmental issues after becoming frustrated with the amount of litter that was being dumped.

The three met at work at Babcock International in Bristol. They wanted an innovative idea that would make a real impact on the world. That’s when they came up with the idea of writing their own books for children, to raise awareness. They tackle issues such as dropping litter, the importance of bees, and up-cycling household waste.

They plan to supply schools across the UK with their first book by September. So far they have secured funding for 1,000 copies to be illustrated and distributed.

Nick, of Royal Wootton Bassett, said: “It’s so important that we use this particular character, a female who is interested in Science, Technology Engineering and Maths because there’s a huge gap in female engineers.

"There’s hardly any because the culture of the world isn’t geared to promote women in those subjects. For us, the big push is to try and get girls interested.

“We also want to promote the fact that anyone of any ethnicity can help better the world.

"We thought of Dora the Explorer and we went down the route of her being female to show some representation. Our character is part of the BAME community, her dad looks Scottish and her mum Jamaican.

“We’re self-publishing, the books are written and the first one we made is currently being illustrated. We’re hopeful that we can go into schools when we’re allowed to, to talk about these books. We plan to go the primary school I went to in Royal Wootton Bassett which is Longleaze.”

The friends are now working with The Prince’s Trust to develop a workshop to create more activity-based material linked to the books.

Nick said: “I ended up doing litter picking because I was getting tired of seeing all the rubbish everywhere. I'd tell my friends and they would tell me to just pick it up, and I did.

“From that moment on I didn’t stop and I wanted to do more about the problem.”

To listen to the books and to learn more about their projects visit the3engineers.com