All Hands on DEC - November / December 2007
This Months Stories:
- DE Go Live
- Dyson in DEC
- KTP Success
- All Terrain S-Board now on Sale
- Interior Design Students in Prestigious Practice
- Professor Gabrys at International Conference
- Psychology Seminars
- Dr Ruta Wins NiSI 2007 Competition
- DEC at Design Your Future
- DEC Graduate at Entrepreneurship Week Launch
- How to submit future stories
- Next Newsletter
DEC Graduate Iain Hill revisited BU on Wednesday 28th November as part of the Design Engineering Live Project. Iain, who is Design Manager and Business Development Manager at RGE Engineering graduated in Product Design Visualisation in 1998.
RGE Engineering is the largest supplier of plastic furniture in the UK and a worldwide manufacturer of plastic injection moulded components and injection moulded tooling. The Live Project involves second year Design Engineering students designing a task chair adjustable arm. The winner of the Live Project will get the opportunity to spend two paid weeks at RGE Engineering overseeing their project from design right through to manufacture. The winning design will then be sold through RGEs customer catalogue.
Iain explained the reason he wanted to work with BU students, I am keen to give something back to the University and give them (the students) the opportunity to work within the constraints of industry. Iain plans to return to BU in January to see how the students are developing their design concepts.
Dyson in DEC
Wednesday 28th November was a busy day in DEC, not only did we receive a visit from Iain Hill from RGE but Dyson also visited to host a workshop and lecture.
The Design Engineer in attendance from Dyson was none other than Loftus Hall a 2005 Product Design graduate who also won the Dyson prize whilst he was a DEC student. Loftus and two representatives from the James Dyson Foundation hosted a workshop for 45 Product Design first year students. The students were set a design brief to design, sketch and model a useful product that is powered by air from a vacuum cleaner (blowing or sucking). You can use cardboard, glue, bits of Dyson and tape. It should have nothing to do with cleaning.
Following the workshop the Dyson representatives commented on how impressed they were with the Product Design students modelling skills and how enthusiastic the students were about the task.
The lecture was open to 240 DEC design students, and the whole experience was a great opportunity for our students as Dyson only make a maximum of twelve visits a year.
KTP Success
Dec have recently been involved in two successful KTP programmes.
The first of which involved Bogdan Gabrys and Michael Jones working with QGate, the aim of the project was to improve the functionality and performance of QGates pattern matching software and to provide a basis for developing the companys foreign language support. From this QGate hoped to expand their existing market as well as create new market opportunities. Not only did Bogdan and Michael receive a Grade B (very good) score, for this project, they also formed a close relationship with QGate which will continue to benefit BU after the project has finished in the form of student placements, research and consultancy opportunities.
The second KTP success featured Norman Stock as the Academic Supervisor and Jim Roach as the Lead Academic, working with Courtney Thorne Ltd, a Bournemouth based electronics company. Courtney Thorne currently produce a Nurse Call System, which is used in a number of care and nursing homes to call care staff to an emergency. The KTP involved the development of a mobile Personal Attack and Locator System, to increase the safety of care staff during their everyday work. The KTP achieved a Grade C, which is particularly good as the Associate left the project before it was completed.
All Terrain S-Board now on Sale
Yet another DEC final year project has resulted in a successful product available on the market. Adam Veitchs All Terrain S-Board design has been sold to HMT Holdings Ltd, and is now available to buy.
This variation of a skateboard features a central torsion bar positioned between two free pivoting wheels. As its name suggests the All Terrain S-Board is designed for use on grass hills and dirt tracks. Adam graduated from the Product Design course last month, and displayed his All Terrain S-Board design at this years Festival of Design & Innovation.
Interior Design Students in Prestigious Practice
Interior Design student Kerry Knights talent was spotted by world renowned architectural company Foster & Partners at this years New Designers event where she was asked to start work in their practice.
Foster & Partners, who are famed for work such as the London Gherkin, British Museum Grand Court, Reichstag Berlin and the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank building in Hong Kong, were so pleased with Kerry, that they have since hired a second Interior Design student, Sarah Jarvis.
Professor Gabrys at International Conference
Between the 27th and 29th December Professor Bogdan Gabrys from the Smart Technology Research Centre will be presenting a plenary lecture at the International Conference on Soft Computing & Intelligent Systems in Jabalpur, India. Professor Gabrys talk is entitled Do smart adaptive systems exist? Soft computing perspective.
Psychology Seminars
The seminar series was launched on November 1st with Professor Michael Eysenck presenting his research on 'Attention, Anxiety and Performance' to a packed audience made up of local Psychologists and University staff. The seminars have attracted a firm core of attendees including University staff and final year students as well as visitors from diverse backgrounds.
At the second seminar, the Psychology Group welcomed back Dr Maryhan Baker who studied for her Psychology & Computing degree at BU. Maryhan presented an overview of her PhD in Developmental Psychology which she recently completed at Reading University . Dr Itiel Dror from Southampton University then gave a fascinating insight into the world of Forensic Psychology in his talk which challenged the accuracy of experts in fingerprinting and related this to the wider field of biometrics. DEC Professor Sine McDougall's research on icons and symbols was attended by a wide variety of people interested in this everyday form of communication, ranging from Psychologists to Human Factors researchers to Designers. Professor McDougall's talk highlighted the role of cognition in designing more useful and effective icons.
The feedback from seminar attendees has been very positive and many new research collaborations are being explored as a result of these talks.
Seminars next term will again tackle a wide variety of topics in Psychology, ranging from ecopsychology to online identity to face recognition to sexual orientation. All members of staff are welcome to attend the seminars and further details can be found at: http://psychology.bournemouth.ac.uk/Seminars.html
Dr Ruta Wins NiSI 2007 Competition
Congratulations to Dr Dymitr Ruta from the Smart Technology Research Centre. Dr Ruta has won the NiSIS (Nature-inspired Smart Information Systems) 2007 competition for the second time. The problem task set was the Analysis and Classification of the DaimlerChrysler Automotive Dataset Images.
Dr Ruta used methodologies and techniques developed from areas of expertise within the Smart Technology Research Centre. Similar approaches have also been successfully used by the Research Centre on joint projects with British Telecommunication, Lufthansa Systems Berlin, Evonik Degussa and QGate Software Ltd.
DEC at Design Your Future
During November DEC attended two UCAS Design Your Future exhibitions. These subject specific days allowed us to raise awareness of our design courses among at least ten thousand students interested in studying design at university.
The events held in London and Manchester provided us with some great feedback about the strong reputation of our Product Design course, as well as giving an insight into what our competitors offer.
DEC Graduate at Entrepreneurship Week Launch
On the 13th November Computer Aided Design graduate Simon Phelps attended the official launch of Global Entrepreneurship Week. As a 2007 Flying Start Global Fellow, Simon was invited to attend the event and met with Carl Shramm, the CEO of the Kauffmann Foundation and Karen Bilmoria, NCGE National Entrepreneurship Ambassador.
The Flying Start Global Fellowship selects the best entrepreneurship talent from UK universities. Simon successfully obtained one of just 15 Fellowships on offer.
How to submit future stories
If you have a story you would like included in the next issue of all hands on DEC please send it to Emma Bennett . Each month the next deadline will be found at the bottom of the newsletter and a document can be found in the I drive (I:\DEC\Private\Marketing\All Hands on DEC) with all copy/story deadlines for the rest of the year.
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Story deadline is: 14 January
Newsletter will be sent out: 30 January
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