Year in Industry with EA Piling in Uganda and Kenya

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Engineering Design student Joe McFarlane has just returned from his Year in Industry in Uganda and Kenya. As well as having a significant impact on the company’s processes and submitting a range of successful tenders, he spent six months project managing a landing bay project. Joe was the youngest and most senior person on site, managing a team of 50 people. The company have already asked him back when he graduates.

Here’s Joe’s experience: 

I spent my Year in Industry working for East African Piling in Uganda and Kenya. The company specialises in a variety of piling solutions for private and public infrastructure markets across East Africa.

At first I was mainly working on design and costing proposals for upcoming projects. Services offered include rotary bored piling, continuous flight auger piling, sheet piling, soil nailing, soil anchors and pile load and integrity testing. Through the year I contributed towards 11 bids, 4 of which the company won.

After this stint working on tenders, I moved on to become the Project Manager of a new marine slipway on the coast of Kenya. The slipway extends 74m into the Indian Ocean and was constructed using a sheet pile cofferdam. At the deepest end of the cofferdam, the maximum retained depth of water was 6 m. The completed structure is 105 m long and 6.5 m wide.

We built the cofferdam using a 75 m long barge as a platform. A crane-slung vibrating hammer was used to drive the sheet piles into the seabed to the required depth. Once the cofferdam had been built, the water was pumped out using two 4-inch submersible pumps to create a dry working space. The existing seabed was excavated to a 10% gradient and back-filled with hard-core material. After this, precast concrete slabs, haunches and underlying geotextile material were placed into position from the end of the slipway up to the junction with the existing road. The final step of construction was to flood the cofferdam and cut the sheet piles at a gradient to be flush with the slipway’s haunches.

    

Despite having to overcome significant challenges over the course of the project, it was a major achievement to produce a quality product which meets all client requirements, within the specified budget and two weeks ahead of schedule.

I thoroughly enjoyed my Year in Industry, having learned an incredible amount about the design, management and implementation of engineering projects. I would recommend it to anyone studying Engineering. With the placement proving to be such a success, I look forward to working with the company again in the future.

 

Hear from Engineering Design student Topaz Maitland, who is currently on her 3rd year industry placement designing a renewable energy turbine in Nepal. http://cabot-institute.blogspot.com/2018/09/my-work-experience-designing-renewable.html 

Technical Apprenticeships in Engineering

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Our Technical Services team underpins all of the work that goes on in Engineering. They are the experts who run the labs,  make the components and work the cutting edge technology we use every day.

Every year we recruit and train new technical apprentices to support the team. Mictroy talks about his experience:

Find out more about Technical Apprenticeships at Bristol: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/staffdevelopment/professional-services/technical-staff/technical-apprenticeships/

Design and make a vending machine

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First year Mechanical Engineering students on the ‘Design & Manufacture 1’ unit undertake a Design and Make Project known as DMP. Students have 8 weeks, working in teams to conceive, design and build a cup vending machine. They spend three weeks brainstorming, conceiving, evaluating and selecting system and sub-system solutions to satisfy a detailed Product Design Specification. There’s four weeks on the embodiment, detail design and build planning, and one week on the manufacture and assembly of the prototype machine itself. There is a high degree of electrical system integration with electrical actuators and sensors which must be used within a programmable microcontroller environment. Students work closely in their teams, managing the project themselves, with technical assistance from staff and demonstration of actuators and sensors from technicians. Students present their final design portfolios and vending machine prototypes to external judges who award prizes for the winning group and runner-up. The week of the final build is always an intense culmination of weeks of hard work – this video give you a flavour of it!

Find out more about our Mechanical Engineering courses 

Games Day: Playing with students’ creations

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Every year third year MEng Computer Science students work together in teams of six to create a state-of-the-art computer game. The groups spend up to 2400 hours between them building games that will thrill, delight or immerse the player and provide a spectacle for those watching them play. ‘Games Day’ is an annual tradition for the games to be played, showcased and marked. We spoke to senior Lecturer Dr Tilo Burghardt and students on the course to find out more.

In their games, students integrate technologies from across various computing subjects whilst flexing their creative muscles building new worlds and scenarios to explore. The CS students often work with MA Composition of Music for Film and Television students to produce the soundtracks for their games. They also get advice from industrial mentors in the games, software or media industry.

The department of Computer Science (which sits in the School of Computer Science, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and Engineering Maths) has been running a computer games module since 1996.

360° tours of Engineering

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We can’t always show people all of our cutting edge labs and facilities when they come to visit the Faculty of Engineering.

It’s impractical to take hundreds of people up on the roof to see our satellite antenna and our Robotics Lab is on another campus up in Filton. With this in mind we’ve made some 360° videos so that you can see the spaces from the comfort of your own computer.

New game simulates crowd evacuations

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Are you calm under pressure? How about in an emergency? Are you sure?

Dr Nikolai Bode from Engineering Maths has developed a game simulation which puts your assumptions to the test. Using mathematical and computational models to predict how crowds of people might move through a building based on assumptions about ordinary human behaviour.

Read the press release.

Play the game

Dr Bode is now carrying out further research and is considering adapting the game for use by event planners, architects and safety stewards, in the hope that the interactive experience it offers could be useful for designing safe evacuation procedures. He is also exploring whether the game could be incorporated into online safety training courses.

Learn about 5G and Smart Cities with BBC Click

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This episode of BBC Click is a great primer for anyone who needs to explain 5G, Smart Cities and the future of wireless to a lay audience.  The piece contextualise the benefits of 5G as well as explaining of the technology. It talks about driverless cars, smart cities and the internet of things whilst helping to move the conversation beyond the misconception that 5G is ‘one up from 4G’.

The episode also features Professor Dimitra Simeonidou and the ‘Layered Realities’, the first public demonstration of 5G technology led by our very own Smart Internet Lab.