On Thursday 25th April the School of Electronic, Electrical and Systems Engineering held its annual Project Open Day which had nearly 50 visitors from industry looking at the work our students are doing.
On Thursday 25th April the School of Electronic, Electrical and Systems Engineering held its annual Project Open Day which had nearly 50 visitors from industry.
There were a wide range of projects on display; all of the final year undergraduate and MSc students were showing their work, the third year MEng students group project, and the second years had the final of their group project – the ever-popular robot race!
“I managed to browse most of the displays and had an opportunity to talk to a handful of students whose projects were of particular relevance to the automotive sector. I must add that I was impressed by the quality of the project material on display. Also, I came away with CVs from a couple of the students I spoke to which I’ll pass on to our HR department for consideration.
Well done for putting together such a large and diverse collection of project displays. I look forward to hearing about future events at the EESE Department, as I’m sure they would be of interest to myself and my colleagues at TRW.”
- Andrew Bold, Principal Software Engineer, TRW Conekt
The final year students tackled difficult challenges set by lecturers who are actively involved in world-leading research and encompassing the breadth of work undertaken in the school, or influenced by the needs of our industrial partners.
Examples of projects include a system to allow excess power harvested from solar panels to be added to the national grid, a control system for the first hydrogen powered locomotive in the UK, a dual-infrared driver drowsiness detection system, an EEG Brain signal capture device, and a wearable gaze tracking system.
Our third year group project for MEng students is always tough; this year the teams were challenged to design and build a system to safely carry a load (in this case a stuffed toy bear) from a height and carry it to a designated “safe place”. One group used a quad-copter, which they designed and built, to fly the bear down for a safe landing.
The second year students worked in groups of 4 to design and build a robot to compete in an egg and spoon race. The winning robot, Jigsaw, completed the challenging 5m course in just under 10 seconds with the second place team being only fractions of a second slower. Many students say that the dramatic and action packed robot race is the highlight of their second year, and is one of the most memorable parts of their time at Birmingham!
