An Excellent Scolarship for an Excellent Student

The Scholarship for Excellence is awarded by the Hong Kong British Council for UK students studying in there for one semester to one year. The purpose of the scholarship is to promote British-Hong Kong relations. The Scholarship is offered by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) are worth up to £3,000, depending on how long the recipients stay in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong British Council says, "By going to Hong Kong, students can experience the vibrant East-West lifestyle of the former British territory and now Special Administrative Region of China, and learn about a region of vital economic and cultural importance to the UK."

SELA member Holly Nicholson is one such student and is one of around 13 other students from UK universities, (including another from Sheffield!) studying at Hong Kong University and Chinese University of Hong Kong who have been  awarded the scholarship this year.

Holly says, "I heard about the scholarship at one of the Global Opps meetings; I applied, and after a Skype interview, found out I had been successful. Actually, I nearly forgot about the interview, because it was the morning of one my final exams - I was on my way to the library when I suddenly remembered and ran back! Fortunately I wasn't late! During the interview I was asked about what other things I did alongside my studies and I was able to talk about working as part of the SELA team, and taking part in the Spaghetti Bridge Challenge [organized by Civil Engineering].

"Whenever I see an opportunity like this, I always apply. I apply for everything. We have a saying in the North East 'shy bairns get nowt', which translates as 'shy children get nothing' but we usually use it to mean, 'if you don't ask, you don't get'! In my experience, keep asking, keep trying, keep applying, and you will reap the reward eventually!"

 

More information on the scholarship can be found here: www.britishcouncil.hk/en/study-uk/scholarships/excellence.

Summer Placement: Materials Science & Engineering, University of Sheffield

Sam Cheney has been working in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at The University of Sheffield carrying out research into Cure monitoring of Electrically cured carbon fibre ply drops. Here's Sam's story:

"I have been using a novel way of curing carbon fibre panels which uses electrical current to heat up a panel and cure the resin. I have been investigating in particular how heat is transferred when there is a decrease in the number layers of carbon fibre between the connecting plates and finding out if there will be any areas of concentrated heat, ideally there will be no change and the panel will cure evenly, however, from testing this theory I have found that heat is transferred slower in thicker sections so I have started investigating solutions and my end aim for the placement is to solve this problem and move on to more complicated ply drop structures.

"After the project I hope to be a contributor to a research paper and become published in a journal.

"I am enjoying my placement, I think the thing I most enjoy is the fact that I am actually making progress on a subject that is currently not fully understood.

"I have been using a blow torch to melt solder and create connecting terminals and the other day I ended up setting fire to the wire, the carbon fibre panel and the tool I was using! Thankfully there was only a small amount of black smoke and I managed to put it out without setting off any fire alarms!"

Summer Placement: AMRC with Boeing

Robin Hartley has been based in the Process Monitoring and Control group at The University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) with Boeing for his summer placement. Here's his story.

I am currently completing a ten week placement within the Process Monitoring and Control group at The University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) with Boeing.

The AMRC started as a collaborative research initiative between the University of Sheffield and Boeing, but has now grown to host over 80 member companies including Airbus, Rolls-Royce, BAE Systems and IBM.

These companies work together in a range of groups in order to develop the next wave of high value manufacturing technologies in readiness for the future of engineering industry. The groups cover machining, composites, medical and nuclear research, design and prototyping, structural testing and automation.

The opportunity for my placement at the AMRC arose from one of our SELA workshops during which a senior Rolls-Royce engineer shared with us his thoughts and perspectives on leadership within his job role at the AMRC. At the end of this workshop, I was keen to follow up the opportunity and was lucky enough to find myself being interviewed the very next morning for a 10 week summer placement within the Process Technology Group at the AMRC. The group focuses research on measurement, computation and autonomous control challenges faced in advanced manufacturing processes.

My project is to design and develop both the software and the hardware for a wireless sensor network which can provide a drop in solution for monitoring the temperature of multiple machine tools on the AMRC Factory of the Future workshop floor. The system I have designed uses the popular Arduino and Raspberry Pi platforms alongside inexpensive ZigBee radios which together provide a compact and low cost solution for wireless data acquisition.

After researching and developing the design at the start of the project, two wireless units have recently been installed on CNC machine tools as a proof of concept system. Each unit has multiple temperature sensors which are now recording data from locations such as the main spindle motor housing, the machine bed, the coolant fluid tank and the ambient workshop temperature.

I hope that in the future, the system developed for this project is expanded to work with a range of Arduino-compatible sensors, in order to allow multiple process parameters to be wirelessly monitored and recorded. This data could then be used to help identify machining anomalies and to improve manufacturing processes to always work at optimum conditions.
As a Chemical Engineering student, I have found this placement very rewarding as it has enabled me to expand my knowledge of programming, wireless communication, electronics and process monitoring in a multidisciplinary engineering environment. This has been a great opportunity to apply my engineering skills in a new context, whilst taking on the responsibility for developing, delivering and presenting my project against a number of design criteria; on time and within budget.

AMRC Project Manager, Simon Hogg has been supervising Robin’s placement. He said: “Robin has been working alongside our own engineers and has managed to adapt his skill set to allow us to progress wireless sensor collection.

“We have adapted the scope of his project dynamically during his placement to fit it to the needs of multiple internal customers including manufacturing engineers and IT managers.”

Summer Placement: Alan Wood & Partners

Calum has been working as a structural engineering consultant at Alan Wood & Partners. Here he tells us about his time there.

I have done such a variety of things since starting. I have designed beams for house renovations, making them open planned. I have done the structural designs on an Orangery, designed the gate, gate post and foundations for a college, and have done the architectural drawings for a large office/warehouse for a big company. I have most recently finished helping do the structural designs for the renovation of the student’s union at the University of Hull. I am currently working on a large extension for a three story house. The best part has been what I have been doing at the moment. I have been given a fresh project, to do the structural designs on a large cottage that is going to be built, rather than be altered.

Once I have finished my placement, I aim to have a better understanding of the real world engineering problems and solutions, and be able to tackle problems with confidence and ease from the skills I have learnt throughout the summer.

I have been thrown in the deep end and have managed to keep my head above water! I have been given my own projects, been trusted to complete drawings to a standard which are to be used in the construction process, and have been given responsibility to contact and consult with both clients and contractors when working on their project. I am working as if I was employed here at the company, rather than a student that has been hired for a summer placement.

The amount of tea that everyone goes through here is incredible. I think I know where the majority of tea in the UK is consumed. And there are only 6 of us here.

Summer Placement: Caterva

Sarunas Nejus has been working at Caterva GmbH  in Germany this summer as an Energy Storage Systems Hardware Engineer. He tells us what he's been up to.

"I am responsible for the hardware of solar energy storage systems, which, apart from the conventional features they have (energy for household users etc.), being connected to a swam, provide/sink charge to/from the grid in Europe when it is needed (for instance, sudden shut off of a power plant). That is called frequency stabilisation and our systems do it in quite a novel way, thus it’s very exciting to work here. One of the things that attracted me here was that the company is a start-up (you know how things are going in start-ups, don’t you?).

"I’m working on a whole lot of various tasks, which do not only include my subject – that makes things even more interesting. The company’s culture is great – as that is a start-up, every door is open and everyone’s ready to help. I’ve actually been enjoying the first month here very much – troubleshooting different hardware problems, designing improvement circuitries for the device and even visiting our customers all across Bavaria for maintenance cases. Although I’ve been here for a very small amount of time, I was swept to the team’s culture so quickly that I feel like I’m senior here already. The communication between the team members is outstanding, including daily huddle sessions and I also have my role defined clearly, I know where the company is moving, its visions and what sort of impact I can make.

"I must mention that the company’s CTO, who is our main manager, is actually the best leadership example I have ever seen in reality. This guy leads by example, even though he always has a great workload to do himself, he is always ready to help anyone with any struggle. All of the company aims are made clear, everyone’s updated about everything that everyone’s been at during daily huddles (what I’ve been at, what I plan to do and what I’m struggling with), and now, experiencing it myself, I can say that this sort of communication is effective and motivating as never. One can notice that assertive communication between each other, a right mixture of work effectiveness and people satisfaction brings unbelievable results considering that the team is so small.

"By the end of the placement (13 months overall) I want to expand my knowledge not just in renewable energy systems hardware but also in its business side, to be aware of what Europe needs and what problems are occurring. The first month looked very promising and I have no doubts that subsequent time here in Caterva will be no less exciting than it’s now."

Summer Placement: ARM

Eddie is studying Electrical and Electronic Engineering. His summer placement was with ARM working within the Systems and Software Group.

Studying Electronic Engineering, I’d heard a lot about ARM, a semiconductor and software design company, designing the IP which goes into 95% of smartphones, 80% of digital cameras, and 35% of all electronic devices. Recently described in an article as an “invisible brand”, given that most consumers of these products may not have ever heard of the company, my summer internship was always going to be a bit of a voyage of discovery!

At the time of writing, I’ve only got a few weeks left of the summer placement and have been very fortunate to have been given access to some amazing resources and guidance from industry leading engineers. The experience I have gained from the various projects I’ve been working on in my role within the Systems and Software Group has been invaluable, giving me the opportunity to learn various new programming languages and top of the range industrial software with a market leader in their industry.

My role has consisted of improving and automating various sections of the verification process, saving my colleagues time and effort on jobs which would usually have been done manually. The task of automating these processes has given me an understanding of the processes themselves, how they could be improved, and the various steps involved in improving them, giving me excellent opportunities to use my own problem solving skills. Being shown the improved accuracy of results of a regression analysis the week after making changes to a script provided me with great evidence that I was helping to make a positive difference within my team, after what felt like a fairly overwhelming start to the summer.

I recently received some valuable advice about automating; always try and replace yourself with a script, there’s always more important things you can spend your time working on! This advice holds true to how I have perceived ARM’s philosophies; there is a strong emphasis on improvement and personal development. There have been a variety of ‘Lunch and Learns’ in which guest speakers talk about their field and the future of technology; the ‘Lunch’ occasionally leaves a little to be desired, but the ‘Learns’ tend to be inspiring enough to make up for that. As interns we were also given the opportunity to work in small teams on the ‘ARM Inten Innovation Challenge’, similar to the Global Engineering Challenge, we were tasked with coming up with a wearable device to improve life in a refugee camp, which was a great opportunity to use skills I’d developed with SELA.

All in all, industry has also taught me many lessons that university life has not necessarily been able to: communication on a variety of different levels is integral to the success of a project; solutions to problems may not always be simple or even possible, as such trial and error and making mistakes are good steps along the way to producing a high quality and sophisticated solution; personal development and opportunities for education do not have to stop after university; and finally, 10PM is a perfectly reasonable bedtime when working a full time job!

Summer Placement: Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Sheffield

Jordan Rickard has been working with the department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University  on a research project about new processing techniques to improve the performance of high efficiency NiFe batteries. He tells us what he's been up to:

So far I have been using a new processing technique to manufacture iron electrodes for use in Nickle-Iron batteries. I start the day by preparing the chemicals needed to coat the iron electrode, then using a press that operates at 120°c and 10 tonnes of pressure I fix the mixture to some nickel plates. These can then be placed in a solution with another electrode and connected to a machine that charges and discharges the newly created battery. I repeat this process for different formulations of chemicals and the data is recorded. The best part of the placement is the freedom I have to try my own ideas. For example, after reading some research papers and learning how to process electrodes under the new manufacturing technique, I was given the responsibility to design, manufacture and test my own electrodes! It has also been very exciting to see the results of the tests as these are completely novel electrode compositions. If all goes well, the results obtained will be reproducible and form the basis of a publishable research paper.

Summer Placement: Farnworth Tunnel

James Featherstone is studying Civil & Stuctural Engineering and is doing his summer placement at Network Rail, working on the Farnworth Tunnel project.

I am based full-time on site at Farnworth Tunnel, a tunnel widening project as part of the wider Northern Hub electrification works which Network Rail have undertaken. The project is truly one of a kind and brings with it challenges which are new to experienced engineers and myself alike.

The site originally had two listed Victorian tunnels, built in the 1830s and 1880s. In order to be electrified, one tunnel needed to be enlarged. The two tunnels had tracks running in each direction (known as ‘up’ and ‘down’ in the railway industry). Running over the top of the tunnels is a busy motorway (the A666) and the railway service was required to be kept running while works were done.

Literally millimetres of deflection in the soil, structures or temporary works could result in closure of the railway and motorway, and worst case scenario could mean a catastrophic failure. Huge levels of risk management, mitigation methods and planning have gone into the project. This includes using steel reinforced spray concrete to strengthen the smaller tunnel while the larger tunnel is bored, grouting the soil to fill any voids, and filling the larger tunnel with 7000m3 of foam concrete to then be dug out and provide structural integrity ahead of the bore.

The most exciting part of the project personally has been seeing the 9m diameter, bespoke tunnelling machine designed and built locally specifically for the project. It is the largest tunnelling machine ever built in the UK and uses very simple civil engineering principles on a massive scale.

When I finish my placement, the 270m long bore should be nearing completion, resulting in one of the two tunnels being able to take two electrified lines side by side and the other original tunnel keeping its smaller profile to be used for maintenance and access.

My summer placement has been extremely rewarding so far – I’m working with engineers, construction managers, project managers, contractors, sub contractors, manufacturers and specialists all on one project in one team. I’ve further expanded my knowledge of how civil engineering projects actually work beyond the classroom/labs and have learnt how applicable my studies are.

Success for SELA's second cohort

Fourteen first year engineering students have been chosen to be part of the 2015 SELA cohort, the second since the leadership programme launched last year.

The candidates won their places on the prestigious programme through a rigorous selection process, involving a detailed application and interview.

The fourteen chosen are studying a wide range of engineering disciplines, including mechanical, structural, automatic control and systems engineering and materials science and engineering.

Mechanical engineering student and keen sportsman, Sam Barnes, was drawn to the subject through his love of cars and bikes, having spent most of his teenage years mending and maintaining his bicycles at home.  He hopes one day to run his own engineering business and says of the SELA programme: “I’m looking forward to learning how best to combine the knowledge gained from my degree with the management and leadership skills that SELA offers, to become a successful engineer.”

Beth Fenna became interested in engineering following volunteer work abroad, which made her keen to learn how engineering knowledge can be used to solve global issues. She is studying Structural Engineering and Architecture and is interested in how collaborations work between the two disciplines. “I’m looking forward to gaining valuable insight from the industry’s leaders through SELA, as well as working alongside and learning from other members of the programme,” she says.

Ben Quickfall hopes SELA will help him to develop into a well-rounded engineer, by improving his interpersonal and leadership skills. His degree – in Mechatronics and Robotics – already combines aspects of several of the traditional engineering  disciplines, including control, mechanical and electrical engineering. “It’s quite a niche subject, but very diverse, which was what attracted me to it,” he says. “Combining the technical knowledge I gain from my studies with the skills gained through SELA will be beneficial. I’m particularly looking forward to working on the programme’s long-term project with the rest of the cohort.”

From space to semiconductors, nerve guides to Network Rail

The 2014 SELA cohort are preparing for their first summer placements – a key element in the SELA programme – which are due to start next month.

 

Several students have secured 8-10 week placements with major engineering firms. These include:

• ARM, a leading designer and supplier of semiconductor technology
• Alan Wood & Partners, civil and structural engineering consultants
• Cambridge Consultants,  product development engineering and technology consultants
• Network Rail
• Caterva, which designs solar energy storage systems

 

Some of the cohort have decided to carry out their first placement in research. The projects they will be working on with the University’s Faculty of Engineering include:

• Additive manufacturing (3D printing) of metallic materials for aerospace
• Space engineering in the low earth orbit
• Nuclear waste disposal
• Implants to enable nerve repair
• Self-healing composite materials
• Battery technology, including 3D printing batteries

Extolling the value of leadership programmes

SELA Director, Professor Neil Hopkinson, was featured recently in The Engineer, writing in support of the importance of undergraduate leadership programmes like SELA. Professor Hopkinson says: “There are now plenty of excellent initiatives to get school children interested in science and engineering, and these are feeding through to increasing applications at degree level. Targeting more specific leadership programmes at undergraduate level is now needed. Those that walk through the door of our universities, signed up to a four-year Masters in engineering, are all high quality candidates, destined for a great career. But also among them are some exceptional individuals who have what it takes to play a leadership role in the sector.”

Read more: www.theengineer.co.uk/students/looking-for-tomorrows-engineering-leaders/1020328.article#ixzz3bFz53PNg