Newsletter · 2014-07-17 · the Morph concept with Nokia has provided us with a focus that is both artistically inspirational but, more importantly, sets the technology agenda for

Executive Introduction

Department of Engineering

In this issue2 Professor Austyn Mair, CBE: 1917 – 2008

3 Cambridge and Nokia – new mobile phoneconcept

4 Professor Ann Dowling elected as foreignassociate of US National Academy ofEngineering

4 Cambridge University groups join forces to helpbudding entrepreneurs

5 Life Sciences Week

6 Dr Andrea Ferrari receives awards from theRoyal Society, Marie Curie and a EuropeanResearch Council Grant

7 New home for the Department’s IfM

8 Honorary Degree for Professor JacquesHeyman

10 Three recent Fellowships in the Department

11 Outreach work by the Department winsnational accolade

11 Student exchange programme with the ÉcoleCentrale Paris

12 Daleks at the Department

12 Women in engineering

13 Rocket Car Derby a soaring success

14 Young eco footprinters present findings

15 Project Expo 2008

15 Pilkington Prizes honour teaching excellence

16 Photography competition winners

18 Engineers “bone” up on biological materials

19 Irene Vidyanti – Sir William Siemens medal

20 What makes a good lecturer?

21 Fundraising success

22 “Flying wing” exhibition at Science Museum

22 Flat-screen TV’s... and beyond

23 Eco Racing solar car drive accross Britain

24 Professor Amaratunga has produced a novelmemory device set to rival transistor-switchedsilicon-based memory

25 Engineering students race off to Germany

26 Nanoscience at forefront of collaboration withIndian Institute of Technology Bombay

26 Engineering Design Centre paper is a leadingdesign journal’s most downloaded paper

27 Royal Academy of Engineering announces newFellows for 2008

28 Cambridge Manufacturing Engineering DesignShow 2008

30 Engineering alumni shine at Olympics

30 Sport, ethics and engineering of the Olympics

31 Medical jargon ‘may harm patients’

32 Professor Malcolm Smith inerter raced inFormula 1

Issue 7 | Winter 2008

NewsletterThe Department is an integral part of the University’s 800thanniversary campaign, striving to retain the brightest academicsand students in pursuit of intellectual excellence. You can readabout some of our successes on page 21.

An integrated engineering departmentfounded on core strengths spanning allengineering disciplines and also cross-connected by three strategic themes:• Cognitive Systems Engineering• Engineering for Life Sciences• Sustainable Development.

www.eng.cam.ac.uk

Thanks to the support of many of ourengineering alumni, Arnaud Bizard has beenawarded the first Ashby Scholarship. He hasstarted his PhD in the mechanics of powderprocessing, with direct application to sugarrefining. The idea is to develop a theoreticalmodel for the operation of a continuous conicalcentrifuge: wet paste enters the machine andmoves up its perforated walls, therebyseparating the liquid from the powder. By understanding the underlying principles, it is hoped that this class of machine will findwidespread application beyond the sugarindustry.

The Ashby Scholarship is vital to our workin the Mechanics and MaterialsDivision at the Department ofEngineering. We are verygrateful to everyone who hasgiven us financial support.

In spite of these successes and the world-ranking of the University, we are consciousthat we cannot continue to maintain thisposition without a substantial increase infunding.

Keeping in line with the Department’smission to address the world’s mostpressing challenges with science andtechnology, we are forging ahead with anexciting fundraising campaign. Werecognise that it is harder to give in thesedifficult economic times but it is at suchtimes that we depend even more onphilanthropy and that the gifts we receivehave an even greater impact. There arethree main thrusts:

Engineering Foundations to createteaching and research facilities worthy ofone of the best engineering departments inthe world. The main project is to create avibrant central hub where the courtyardcurrently stands on the Trumpington Streetsite. Students, staff and industrial visitorswill be able to work and socialise togetherin dramatic new space and extra researchand teaching areas will be added. Thedesign will meet high standards of energyefficiency with a combined heat and powercentre at its heart. We are actively seeking

major gifts to further this transformationalproject.

Engineering Frontiers to create newposts that secure the Department’sprospects and push the boundaries ofengineering. For example, we are offering anaming opportunity for our top priority, theProfessorship of Engineering for SustainableDevelopment. The demand for academicwork in this area from students, industryand government is high.

Engineering Futures to nurture thenext generation of engineering leaders fromschool to the start of their careers. We willcreate a general fund to support a widevariety of projects from outreach to primaryschools through to fast-track funding forsecuring the world’s best PhD students. Thefund will gather together many donationsfrom our alumni and other supportersaround the world. Every contribution, nomatter how small, will greatly help youngengineers.

If you are interested in gettinginvolved, then please contact eitherPhilip Guildford, [email protected] Ms Liffy Gorton,[email protected]

2 | Engineering Newsletter | Issue 7 | Autumn 2008

Professor Mair was Professor ofAeronautical Engineering at Cambridge andheaded the Department for a full decade,overseeing the introduction of newprofessorships, changes to undergraduateteaching and the modernisation of facilities.Earlier in his career he had contributed tothe design of the RAF’s first jet aircraft.

William Austyn Mair was born in 1917and educated at Highgate School, London,and Clare College, Cambridge, where hetook a first with distinction in themechanical sciences tripos.

He took a job at the aero-enginedepartment of Rolls-Royce in Derby butwhen World War II broke out and he wascommissioned by the RAF and sent to theRoyal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) atFarnborough. He spent the rest of the wardesigning and commissioning wind tunnelsand testing and investigating theperformance of fighter planes.

Professor Mair was particularlyinterested in the problems of aerodynamicsat speeds approaching the speed of sound.At the time the behaviour of aircraft flyingnear and above that speed was not wellunderstood. His work in this fieldcontributed to an improved design for theGloster Meteor – the RAF’s first operationaljet aircraft.

At the end of the war he was sent toGermany to discover what developmentshad been made there in aircraft and rockettechnology. A year later he wasdecommissioned and continued hisexperimental work in the academic sphere.

He became director of the new FluidMotion Laboratory at the University ofManchester, researching aspects ofsupersonic flow, before returning toCambridge in 1952 as Professor ofAeronautical Engineering, aged just 35.

At the time Cambridge's aeronauticslaboratory comprised three small, low-speedwind tunnels in a small wooden hut.Professor Mair designed and built asupersonic wind tunnel and a larger, low-speed wind tunnel, which was up andrunning by 1960. In 1961 he moved intoresearch for Hovercraft DevelopmentLimited, examining problems caused bywind forces on both hovercraft and trains.

He became Head of Department in1973 during the economic recession. Suchwas his success in guiding the Departmentthrough this difficult period that a secondfive-year tenure followed in 1978. Thisallowed Professor Mair to overseenumerous improvements to laboratoryfacilities, the appointment of a number ofnew professors of engineering and theintroduction of a new four-year course forthe Production Engineering Tripos, laterknown as the Manufacturing EngineeringTripos.

In 1975 he was awarded the RoyalAeronautical Society’s Silver Medal. He alsoserved on the Aeronautical ResearchCouncil and was on the editorial board ofthe Aeronautical Quarterly, which hechaired. He was appointed CBE in 1969,elected to the Fellowship of Engineering(later the Royal Academy of Engineering) in

1984 and awarded an honorary DSc by theCranfield Institute of Technology in 1990.He was a fellow of Downing College from1953 and was elected an honorary fellow30 years later. In retirement he worked asan engineering consultant, and published abook; Aircraft Performance (with D LBirdsall).

He is survived by his wife Mary, whomhe married in 1944, and by their two sons.One of his sons, Professor Robert Mair, isProfessor of Engineering at Cambridge andMaster of Jesus College.

Professor Austyn Mair, CBE: 1917 – 2008

Professor Austyn Mair

Professor Austyn Mair, CBE, the former Head of the Department ofEngineering, University of Cambridge who carried out pioneeringwork on supersonic aircraft designs, has died aged 90.

Alumni event: Cities of the futureOn a beautiful sunny Sunday morning inSeptember it was fabulous to see over 100alumni turn up to our showcase ofresearch on the theme of “Cities of theFuture”.

Age was certainly no barrier toenthusiasm, as many of our older alumnicrowded round the poster displays,engaged in lively conversation with ourPhD students and staff alike, always withan opinion or two!

Professor Roberto Cipolla and Dr BjornStenger drew a constant crowd to see theirexperimental TV where the visitors wereable to interact with the display systemsimply by gesturing with their hand while

others were intrigued by CambridgeUniversity Eco Racing (CUER) team'samazing solar powered car parked in thecourtyard. From Tsunami resistant housingto aero-engine combustion research therewas something to educate and interesteveryone and to make sure everyonebehaved themselves, a rather cheekyDalek, courtesy of Adam Strawson, was onpatrol. This year’s Sunday showcase turnedout to be the most popular yet.

Many thanks to Jane Hunter for organisingthe event and to all those whoparticipated. Jane Hunter event organiser (left)

Cambridge and Nokia introduce newstretchable and flexible mobile phone conceptThe concept for a new stretchable and flexible mobile phonedeveloped by the University of Cambridge and the Nokia ResearchCenter (NRC) was unveiled earlier this year.

Morph WristMode

Morph, the joint nanotechnology concept,was launched earlier this year alongsidethe new Design and the Elastic Mindexhibition at The Museum of Modern Art(MoMA) in New York City in which it wasprofiled.

Morph is a concept that demonstrateshow future mobile devices might bestretchable and flexible, allowing users totransform their mobile devices intoradically different shapes. It demonstratesthe ultimate functionality thatnanotechnology might be capable ofdelivering: flexible materials, transparentelectronics and self-cleaning surfaces.

Professor Mark Welland, Head of theDepartment of Engineering’s NanoscienceGroup at the University of Cambridge andUniversity Director of Nokia-Cambridgecollaboration, commented: “Developingthe Morph concept with Nokia hasprovided us with a focus that is bothartistically inspirational but, moreimportantly, sets the technology agendafor our joint nanoscience research that willstimulate our future work together.”

Dr. Tapani Ryhanen, Head of the NRCCambridge UK laboratory, Nokia, added:“We hope that this combination of art andscience will showcase the potential ofnanoscience to a wider audience. Thetechniques we are developing might oneday mean new possibilities in terms of thedesign and function of mobile devices. Theresearch we are carrying out isfundamental to this as we seek a safe andcontrolled way to develop and use newmaterials.”

The partnership between the Universityof Cambridge and Nokia was announcedin March, 2007 – an agreement to worktogether on an extensive and long termprogramme of joint research projects. NRChas established a research facility at theUniversity’s West Cambridge site andcollaborates with several departments –initially Engineering’s Nanoscience Centreand the Electrical Division – on projectsthat, to begin with, are centered onnanotechnology.

The Nanoscience Centre provides openaccess to over 300 researchers from avariety of University Departments to thenanofabrication and characterisationfacilities housed in a combination of CleanRooms and low noise laboratories.Research is aimed especially at

multidisciplinary projectswhere engineering,biology, physics,chemistry andmaterials sciencemeet.

TheElectricalEngineeringDivision of theDepartmentof Engineeringbuilds onCambridge’shistory ofworld-leadingresearch inPhotonics andElectronics bysignificantly enhancingcollaboration with industryand by providing a focus formultidisciplinary research involving over200 engineers, as well as chemists,physicists, materials scientists andbioscientists. It includes the ‘Centre forAdvanced Photonics and Electronics’(CAPE) and the ‘Cambridge IntegratedKnowledge Centre for AdvancedManufacturing Technologies forPhotonics and Electronics’.

A video on this new technology isavailable to watch on the Nokiawebsite: www.nokia.com/A4879144

More information on TheDepartment’s NanoscienceCentre can be found at:www.nanoscience.cam.ac.uk/

Morph PhoneMode

Engineering Newsletter | Issue 7 | Autumn 2008 | 3

The ElectricalEngineering

Division of theDepartment of

Engineeringbuilds on

Cambridge'shistory of world-leading researchin Photonics and

Electronics


Election to the National Academy ofEngineering is amongst the highestprofessional distinctions accorded to anengineer. Academy membership honoursthose who have made outstandingcontributions to “engineering research,practice, or education, including, whereappropriate, significant contributions to theengineering literature,” and to the“pioneering of new and developing fieldsof technology, making major advancementsin traditional fields of engineering, ordeveloping/implementing innovativeapproaches to engineering education.”There are 194 foreign associates.

Ann has been elected for advances inacoustics and unsteady flow, and forleadership in collaborative research betweenindustry and universities.

Professor Dame Ann Dowling

The Department’s ProfessorDame Ann Dowling has beenelected a foreign associate ofthe US National Academy ofEngineering.

Professor DameAnn Dowlingelected foreignassociate of USNationalAcademy ofEngineering

Cambridge University groupsjoin forces to help buddingentrepreneursSixteen Cambridge University groups involved in the support ofenterprise and innovation are working together to improvesupport for would-be entrepreneurs.

The new initiative – known as theCambridge University Enterprise Network(CUEN) – aims to increase the flow ofinformation between the growing numberof organisations supporting enterprise andinnovation in the university. CUEN recentlyheld a meeting at which 30 representativesfrom 16 organisations came together tolearn about each other's activities and spotopportunities for collaboration.

The groups involved include thoseorganising student business plancompetitions, or providing direct supportfor inventors trying to bring a product ideato market. Other groups are offeringcourses in entrepreneurship or providingadvice to high-tech start-up companies.

CUEN plans to:• organise regular update events • provide a website to share resources

and plan joint projects • publicise information about the wide

range of enterprise and innovationactivities via a jointly developed wiki. A wiki is a collection of web pagesdesigned to enable anyone whoaccesses it to contribute or modifycontent, using a simplified markuplanguage. Wikis are often used tocreate collaborative websites and topower community websites.

The launch of CUEN has been coordinatedby the Technology Enterprise Group (TEG)– part of the Department's Institute forManufacturing’s Centre for TechnologyManagement (CTM). TEG organised anevent in partnership with the Centre forEntrepreneurial Learning and CambridgeEnterprise. Initial support has beenprovided by St John’s Innovation Centreand the Gatsby Charitable Foundation.

CTM’s Tim Minshall said “There is nowa diverse and increasing range ofentrepreneurship support activities acrossthe University and throughout the region.Helping forge links between these activitieswill enable groups to spot opportunitiesfor collaboration, avoid duplication ofeffort and communicate a clear messageto actual and would-be entrepreneursabout these activities.”

FACT BOX

Cambridge Engineerswon the international'Next GenerationEntrepreneur Forum'with their TouchSight Vision Mitt, andare set to improve thelives of millions ofpeople with sightdeficiencies.

Michelle Oyen spearheaded the Engineeringfor Life Sciences Week.

Engineering for the Life Sciences is amajor initiative in the Department and keyto the Department's strategy which seeks toaddress major global challenges. There is agrowing need for a more integratedapproach to the understanding of biologicalsystems, providing many opportunities forthe application of engineering to clinicaland life sciences. Engineering for the LifeSciences is a rapidly growing fieldencompassing the use of engineering toolsto solve problems in medicine and biologyas well as new quantitative approaches tobiological systems based on engineeringprinciples.

The new laboratory is a three-roomsuite, and is a biological containment facility (Biosafety Level 2) equipped for cell and tissue culture. Additional facilities in the laboratory include an Instron forsmall-scale mechanical testing, including an integrated water bath for keepingbiological samples hydrated, as well as new equipment for infrared spectroscopyand microscopy.

Current activities in the laboratoryinclude a number of independent projectsdirected at biologically-relevant materialssynthesis and characterisation, such asbone-like biomimetic composite materialsand of protein- and sugar-based hydrogels.Other projects consider tissue biomechanics,

how healthy and diseased tissues respondto mechanical loading, including bothexperimental characterisation of tissuemechanical behaviour and computationalmodelling of physiological functions. Agrowing effort concerns fluid-structureinteractions in the cardiovascular system,both in adults and in placentaldevelopment. The scope of currentbioengineering research projects includes

both seeking basic science understandingand clinical application, including diagnosticand tissue engineering applications.Researchers in the Division havecollaborative projects ongoing with theDepartment of Physiology as well as severaldifferent groups within the clinical school,including (but not limited to) Urology,Obstetrics, Clinical Pharmacology andRadiology.


Life Sciences WeekThe Mechanics, Materials and Design Division’s new bioengineering research laboratory opened inMarch, and was celebrated during “Engineering for Life Sciences Week” which included a receptionwith laboratory tours and two guest seminar speakers.

The Engineering for the Life Sciences new laboratory

Cambridge academic appointed new ChiefScientific Adviser for the Ministry of DefenceThe Prime Minister named Professor Mark Welland FRS FREng as the new Chief Scientific Adviser atthe Ministry of Defence.

Professor Welland, Head of the NanoscienceGroup at the Nanoscience Centre andProfessor of Nanotechnology at theDepartment of Engineering, took up hisnew appointment as Chief Scientific Adviseron Monday 7 April. He will continue hisinnovative research at the University,splitting his time between Cambridge andLondon.

He succeeds Professor Sir Roy Anderson,who has left to rejoin Imperial College,pending his appointment as Rector thissummer.

Secretary of State for Defence, Mr DesBrowne said: “I am delighted to welcome

Mark Welland as our new Chief ScientificAdviser. His extensive experience and hiswide ranging scientific interest, togetherwith his strong links to academia will proveinvaluable to his successful tenure in thisrole.

“I would also like to pay tribute toProfessor Sir Roy Anderson FRS whose workas Chief Scientific Adviser has significantlyimproved the way the MOD’s researchprogramme is developed and managed.”

Vice-Chancellor Professor Alison Richardsaid: “This is a wonderful opportunity forMark and we are delighted that he hasbeen recognised with such a prestigious

position. He has made, and continues tomake, significant contributions to theadvancement of nanoscience; and he willbe a huge asset as the Ministry of Defenceattempts to tackle complex scientificissues.”

Professor Welland said: “I am delightedto have been offered the opportunity tolead Science and Technology within theMinistry of Defence. As CSA I look forwardto working with professional and dedicatedstaff from both the Armed Forces and Civil Service to ensure science contributesfully in supporting the role of the ArmedServices.”


Andrea and his team have received theBrian Mercer Award for Innovation inNanotechnology from The Royal Society.The team's work in nanotube-basedpolymer optoelectronics will seek tocombine polymers and carbon nanotubes.This will have the benefit of reduced costand greater flexibility of use overconventional inorganic semiconductors. Thework is expected to have practicalapplications in optical communications, bio-medical instruments, chemical analysis, timeresolved spectroscopy, electro-opticalsampling, microscopy and surgery.

The £250,000 Prize was presented atthe annual Royal Society ‘From labs toriches’ event. The awards are given toencourage innovation in science andtechnology and promote its commercialapplication.

Andrea said “Nanotechnology is one ofthe most exciting areas in modern science.The potential of substances such as carbonnanotubes is massive. The UK has to ensurethat it invests in the technology now so thatwe are not left behind. The ability tomanipulate the structure and compositionat the nano-scale opens huge opportunitiesto create materials with superiorperformance for new products and devices.The introduction of a wide range of newlow-cost materials, encompassing polymersand nanostructures, including nanotubesand nanowires, is set to have a disruptiveimpact on current products which useconventional inorganic semiconductors, notonly because of cost/performanceadvantages, but also because they can bemanufactured in more flexible ways,suitable for a growing range ofapplications.”

Sir Peter Williams, Vice-President of theRoyal Society said; “Science may well holdthe key to solving many of the challengesthe world is facing but that will not happenif we do not invest in people and ideas.With the Brian Mercer Awards we arebacking up our words with actions.”

Andrea has also been awarded theMarie Curie Excellence Award for his

research on carbon nanotechnology. Duringhis Marie Curie-sponsored PhD here at theDepartment, he worked on ultra-thincarbon films, a critical part of the hard drivetechnology, at the heart of many consumerelectronics. This was just the start of asuccessful career for the young researcherthat combines fundamental multi-disciplinary science with a keen eye forapplication and innovation.

For the first time, the EU’s three mostprestigious science awards have beenpresented together – the ScienceCommunication Prizes, Marie CurieExcellence Awards and the DescartesResearch Prizes. Describing the winners as“the best Europe has to offer”, science andresearch commissioner Janez Potocnik saidthe awards honoured excellence, opennessand creativity.

Established in 2003, the Marie CurieExcellence Awards recognise outstandingachievements by scientists that havereached a level of exceptional excellence intheir field. Researchers of any nationalityand in all fields of research are eligible

provided they have benefited from one ofthe EU-funded researcher career supportschemes. These Marie Curie Actions aim towiden researchers’ prospects and promoteexcellence in EU research. Five winners, whoeach receive a EUR 50,000 prize, come fromfour different countries.

The third award for Andrea this year is aprestigious grant from the EuropeanResearch Council (ERC) to develop a newclass of polymer-based optoelectronicdevices.

The ERC encourages researchers to takerisks in their research and go beyondestablished frontiers of knowledge and theboundaries of disciplines. The StartingIndependent Research Grant scheme targetspromising researchers in Europe who havethe proven potential of becomingindependent research leaders. It providesthem with between EUR500K and EUR2Mover five years to study at an institution oftheir choice. From over 9000 applicationsfor a Starting Independent Research Grantonly 220 were successful; a proposalsuccess rate of just three per cent.

Dr Andrea Ferrari receives the Brian MercerAward for Innovation in Nanotechnology fromThe Royal Society, a Marie Curie Award and aEuropean Research Council grant

Dr Andrea Ferrari (left) EU commissioner Janez Potocnik and the Slovenian Ministry of HigherEducation, Science and Technology, Mojca Kucler Dolinar who presented the awards

Dr Andrea Ferrari and his teamat the Department havereceived three prestigiousawards this year.


The building, designed by world-famousarchitects Arup Associates, will create aninternational centre for industrial innovation,reflecting the IfM’s integrated approach toglobal industrial issues.

A generous donation from leadingBritish industrialist Dr Alan Reece providedthe funds needed to complete the projectand the building will be named in hishonour. Dr Reece officially launched theconstruction phase at a start-on-siteceremony on Tuesday 26 February.

Professor Mike Gregory, Head of theIfM, said: “We are extremely grateful to Dr Reece for his great generosity which hasenabled us to build a state of the art homefor our work.”

The new building will accommodatestudents, staff and industrial partners at theheart of the University’s growing science andtechnology campus at West Cambridge. Itwill provide a forum in which globalindustrial issues can be pursued in a multi-disciplinary and practical way involvingindustrialists and policy makers as well asacademics.

The design of the building reflects theIfM’s established cross-disciplinary approach,with large communal areas, shared studyrooms, open plan work areas for studentsand researchers and world-class meetingand communication facilities. The IfM wasestablished in 1998 with the aim of linkingeducation, research and practice andengineering, management and economicswith a strong industrial orientation.

New facilities for the IfM’s technicalresearch groups will include workshops forthe design of new commercial products andlaboratories for research into newapplications of laser, radio-identification, andinkjet technologies.

Dr Reece has contributed £5 milliontowards funding the building, which will benamed the Alan Reece Building in hishonour.

Dr Reece left his readership inAgricultural Engineering at the University ofNewcastle upon Tyne in the 1980s to focuson invention.

His innovative designs included a highlyefficient undersea plough, which greatlyreduced the cost of installing the cables andpipelines vital for the telecoms and oilindustries, amongst others, beyond thereach of trawler dragnets.

Since then, his companies have broughtover £400 million of business to Tyneside,employing several hundred people.

He has made substantial charitabledonations to numerous educational andcommunity projects in the Tyneside region.One of his companies, Pearson EngineeringLtd has also supported humanitarianorganisations who work to remove landmines in former war zones.

More recently, they were awarded theworld's first contract for a mining machinedesigned to operate in extremely deepwater.

Dr Reece is still passionately concernedwith engineering and manufacturing. In2006 he published a paper arguing that thedecline in manufacturing in the UK has ledto a decline in the demand for highly-paidtechnologists, which is in turn partiallyresponsible for current problems in theteaching of maths and the sciences.

Funding for the £15 million building hasalso come from the Gatsby CharitableFoundation and the Government’s ScientificResearch Infrastructure Fund.

The Alan Reece Building’s location onthe West Cambridge site will help fosterlinks with other researchers in the University.These include the Computer Laboratory, theNanoscience Centre and the Centre for thePhysics of Medicine.

Several research groups from theDepartment of Engineering, of which theIfM is a part, are also based nearby,including the Whittle Laboratory for researchin turbomachinery the SchofieldGeotechnical Centre and the ElectricalEngineering Division.

More information about the building,plans, maps and photographs pleasevisit: www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/westsite/

New home for the Department'sInstitute for Manufacturing

Dr Alan Reece (left) and Professor Mike Gregory

Work is underway on a new, £15 million home for theDepartment's Institute for Manufacturing (IfM).

Andrea’s award of EUR1.8M willenable him to further his research intonovel materials at the nano-scale level.Andrea explains, “Fundamental scienceplays a crucial role in underpinning andgenerating future technologies. Theability to manipulate the structure andcomposition at the nano-scale opens newhorizons and huge opportunities tocreate novel materials with superiorperformance. The introduction of a widerange of new low-cost materials,encompassing polymers, advanced liquidcrystals, and nanostructures, includingcarbon nanotubes (CNTs) and nanowires(NWs), will have disruptive impact on avariety of devices based on conventionalinorganic semiconductors, not onlybecause of cost/performance advantages,but also because they can bemanufactured in more flexible ways,suitable for a growing range ofapplications.”

The aim of Andrea’s research is todevelop a new class of polymer-basedoptoelectronic devices embedding theoptical and electronic functionalities ofCNTs. These devices will combine thefabrication advantages of polymerphotonics, with the tunable active andpassive optical properties of CNTs. Suchdevices are expected to find a wide rangeof applications not only in opticalcommunications but also in bio-medicalinstruments, chemical analysis, time-resolved spectroscopy, electro-opticalsampling, microscopy and surgery.

This is an ambitious frontier researchprogramme, with a stronginterdisciplinary nature, acrossengineering, physical, chemical and softmatter sciences. Basic physics andchemistry research will be stimulated by the challenges of practicalimplementation in devices; new directionsfor applications will be suggested bybasic science results.

The ERC grant will also consolidatehis newly established research group“Nanomaterials and Spectroscopy” at theCentre for Advanced Photonics andElectronics (CAPE).

For further information pleasecontact Dr Ferrari: [email protected] visit the websites of theElectronic Devices & Materials Group(EDM Group) www-g.eng.cam.ac.uk/edm/index.html and theNanomaterials and SpectroscopyGroup (NMS Group) www-g.eng.cam.ac.uk/nms/


The degree was proposed by the SpanishUniversity’s School of Architecture inrecognition of Professor Heyman’s work inthe engineering analysis of masonrystructures.

Professor Heyman read engineering atCambridge and in 1946 joined aCambridge-based research team workingon the plastic (i.e. inelastic) design of steelbuildings. The work led to a PhD, and hethen spent a post-doctoral year at BrownUniversity. He returned to Cambridge as aUniversity lecturer and Fellow ofPeterhouse.

Professor Heyman made a name forhimself by applying the plastic principles ofsteel structures to the analysis of masonrybuildings. This introduction of moderntechniques into older masonry buildingsmade him the world's leading expert incathedral and church engineering. In 1971Professor Heyman was responsible for therestoration of Ely Cathedral’s Great WestTower.

After his retirement Professor Heymanbecame a consultant and is still concernedwith cathedral and church restorationprojects. He gave courses of lectures atFlorence University and has also served as amember of theArchitectural Advisory Panelfor Westminster Abbey, aswell as the CathedralsFabric Commission forEngland. The Archbishop ofCanterbury recognized hiswork by the award of theCross of St. Augustine in2005.

The oration byProfessor Aroca at theaward ceremony in theSpanish capital spoke of his majorcontribution in recognising the applicabilityof plasticity theory to masonry structures:

Full oration by Professor Aroca(Translation by Alejandra Albuerne)

“It is a great honour for me to addressyou on behalf of the Polytechnic Universityof Madrid in this ceremony to honourProfessor Jacques Heyman by conferring aDoctor Honoris Causa Degree on him,following the proposal of the School ofArchitecture.

“To understand the crucial roleProfessor Heyman has played inunderstanding the structural behaviour of

buildings we should go back in time. “Until the 19th Century Construction

was an empiric art based on geometricalrules; its structural side started to appear inthe scientific field in 1638 with thepublishing by Galileo of his “Dialogueabout two new sciences”. (Galileo hadsome problems with the Church, who hadserious, and mistaken, opinions about themechanics of celestial bodies, butfortunately didn’t have an opinion on themechanics of solid bodies).

“In the western tradition, there is anunderlying certainty, as a Greco-Judaiclegacy, that the world is ruled by simplelaws that are waiting to be discovered(now we would say all the laws are onlymental constructions that enable us toapproximate or describe naturalphenomena). The work started by Galileo,which discredits the rules of proportionand establishes the basis for the modernunderstanding of structures, is continuedby other philosophers (in the 17th century,the scission of the natural philosophers,later scientists, hadn’t taken place yet,giving up metaphysics to future self-named“philosophers”).

"The 18th century and most of the19th century witnessed thedevelopment and nearlythe end of the science ofstructures; towards the endof the 19th century, thelaws and concepts of theelastic theory of structuresare expressed extremelyclearly, only some technicalaspects were still pendingon the mathematicalresolution of differentialequation systems,

equations that were not solved until thesecond half of last century. Some of uspresent here today had the privilege ofwitnessing the spectacular development ofnumerical analysis, having far exceeded thepoint from which the designer was able toignore annoying calculations, it hasreached the extreme of making thembelieve that it is not even necessary todominate the concepts, but despite itsimpact, this has been only a technicaldevelopment on the scientific baseestablished in the 19th century.

“Without wishing to show anydisrespect for the fantastic technicalprogress in analysis: In my opinion, there

has been only one essential contribution tothe science of structures in the 20thcentury.

“From the later years of the 19thcentury, steel structures were being builtbut nobody thought it necessary to verify iftheir behaviour corresponded to thetheoretical predictions.

“Between 1931 and 1936, as part ofthe work editing a design code for theelastic analysis of steel frames and underthe auspices of Baker, a series ofmeasurements of real structures weremade. The results of these showed aserious disagreement between the perfecttheoretic model, which was the basis ofthe science of structures, and reality. Thiswas directly related to the initial state andthe boundary conditions.

The easiest way to illustrate theproblem is:• When someone sits on a three legged

stool, it is possible to calculate theground reaction on each of the legs.

• For a four legged stool, it is impossible;the geometrical perfection of the stool,the ground topography and even thecleanness of the stool (data impossibleto introduce in the model) have adecisive effect on the result.

“Real structures are stools with many legs,imperfectly constructed and resting on aground that defies any precise/exactdefinition.

Honorary Degree for Professor Jacques HeymanProfessor Jacques Heyman, formerly Head of the Department anda leading figure in church architecture and restoration wasawarded a degree Honoris Causa by the Universidad Politécnica deMadrid on 28th January 2008.

Professor Jacques Heyman

He arrived in Cambridge in 1941,

at the age of 16, with the intention of

studying mathematics,but the following year

he changed to engineering


“In 1936 it was evident for Baker thata new approach in the analysis ofstructures was necessary. Predictions in acloser agreement with the actual results,which were considerably less random thanthe elastic measurements, could beobtained if the possible deformations/strains in the plastic range of steel wereconsidered. The Second World Warinterrupted the work. However, by 1948Baker had a calculation method but it stilllacked a solid conceptual base. Thecontribution of Prager, at the time with theAmerican University of Brown, was decisiveto the progress of developing it. Thetheorems of the “ultimate load” are thelatest theoretical contribution to thescience of structures.

“The collapse load of astructure has a specificvalue, equal to or largerthan that obtained fromequilibrium equations, andequal to or smaller thanthe value obtained from apossible mode/mechanismof plastic displacements/movements.

“Limit analysis, whosepractical applicationpreceded the rigorousenunciation of thetheorems, allows us toobviate the issues of thethe initial state and the boundaryconditions. Heyman was there at the timethis crucial contribution was formulated.He arrived in Cambridge in 1941, at theage of 16, with the intention of studyingmathematics, but the following year hechanged to engineering and graduated in1944, when the world was still at war andwas demobilised in 1946. He returned toCambridge and joined Baker’s team as aresearch assistant, gaining his doctorate in1949. Except for a very short period oftime spent at Oxford, he developed hisacademic career, which reached its peak ashead of the Engineering Department, backat Cambridge.

“While working in Baker’s team hecollaborated in the development of themathematical basis of plastic theory. It isnot in his nature to claim merits, but hecannot conceal that he was able tounderstand and publish in 1966, in hisfundamental work “The Stone Skeleton”,that an approach to the analysis developedfor steel structures was perfectly applicableto masonry structures. Hence he hadproved the general applicability of thetheory, beyond the material, endowedtraditional systems of verification with asolid theoretical base and established arational process of analysis that he hasapplied to several extraordinarily importantbuildings.

“Quoting him, not literally: In 1638Galileo breaks away from geometrical rulesand opens the way allowing us to checkstructures based on strength and stiffness;fabric structures are much more rigid/stiffthan strictly necessary, so it is notnecessary to check either of those aspects;the analysis should be based onequilibrium, which finally leads to a correctunderstanding of its geometry in order toverify its safety through the considerationof limit states.

“At this point, I can’t avoid telling astory that happened some 25 years ago:Saez de Oiza was in charge of maintainingand restoring the Cathedral of Leon andhe came up to me amazed: “I have had afinite element analysis of the cathedral

done and the cathedralstands because the top,straight, layer of the flyingbuttresses is made ofgranite, which has a higherelastic modulus thansandstone.” I tried withoutsuccess to convince himthat, without even takinginto account otherproblems, at that momentin time it was not yetpossible to solve equationsystems, other than planeones. Therefore, for agothic structure, not even a

reasonable geometric modelling could bedone.

“Some days later, very worried, he toldme, “after all, it is not granite butsandstone painted grey”. I replied: “then itwill collapse and at last you will have thecertainty of going down in history as theperson responsible for the collapse of theCathedral of Leon”. To my surprise thefollowing day, while the cathedral was stillstanding, he resigned from the job.

“Professor Heyman is the author of alarge number of important books andarticles; he has worked and works as aconsultant on masonry structures; he wasuntil his retirement, Head of theEngineering Department of CambridgeUniversity, where he succeeded Baker inthe post, although the formal successionwas delayed for a few years, and at theage of 82 he enjoys an extraordinaryphysical and mental health; it is hard tobelieve that he was already activelycollaborating on a fundamental advance inthe theory of structures, when the majorityof you here today weren’t born and someof us, who are no longer young, wereonly children.

“His technical and scientificcontributions are full of clarity andcommon sense with the intention offinding and explaining the essentialquestions/issues and putting them forward

in the simplest possible manner. Like him,some of us still believe that complex setups based on calculation subtleties arecapable only of offering an unrealaccuracy, given that it is not possible towork from hypothesis with suitablereliability, and therefore cannot be usefulunless the behaviour of the structure isalso understood.

“It is a great honour, for thePolytechnic University of Madrid, thatProfessor Heyman joins our DoctorsHonoris Causa.”

His technical andscientific contributionsare full of clarity andcommon sense with

the intention of findingand explaining the

essentialquestions/issues

and putting themforward in the simplest

possible manner

The University has a 98%retention rate for students,the lowest drop-out rate inthe country.

FACT BOX


Dr Katherine HellerKatherine Heller who has recently joinedthe Information Engineering Division of theDepartment has been awarded an EPSRCPost Doctoral Research Fellowship inTheoretical Computer Science.

The title of Katherine’s EPSRC Fellowshipis: “Beyond Clustering: UnsupervisedModelling with Complex Representations”Describing her research she says: “The fieldI work in, Machine Learning, strives todevelop new theory and algorithms thatimprove the ability of computers torecognize patterns, make autonomousdecisions, and make predictions based ondata. Clustering is an importantunsupervised Machine Learning tool for avariety of problems. Automated clusteringtools have been used to cluster geneexpression data in order to elucidate genefunction, automatically group news articleson the web by topic, and spatio-temporallycluster climate data to improve climateprediction.

“While clustering is a wonderful tool formany applications, it is actually quitelimited. In many situations the data beingmodelled can have a much richer and morecomplex hidden representation than thesimple assignment of each data point to acluster. For example, the data beingmodelled might have multiple latentfeatures (like images which can containmultiple objects). Moreover, the totalnumber of latent features might not beknown, and therefore should not bespecified or limited a priori. This flexibility isprovided by the use of nonparametricBayesian methods, which will play afundamental role in my work. My main goalis to advance the state-of-the-art forunsupervised machine learning, bydeveloping principled, theoretically sound,probabilistic models and algorithms, whichextend a clustering paradigm to problemswhich need richer representations.”

For further details please visitKatherine’s webpages:www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk/~heller/

Dr Stephan HofmannDr. Stephan Hofmann, in the ElectricalEngineering Division of the Department, hasrecently been awarded a Royal SocietyDorothy Hodgkin Research Fellow by TheRoyal Society. The Dorothy HodgkinFellowship scheme supports excellentscientists and engineers at an early stage oftheir career.

Describing his research he says: “Today,nanoscience and technologies attract aglobal investment in excess of 5 billion andare becoming a central interdisciplinaryresearch area with diverse applications, e.g.drug development, water decontamination,information and communicationtechnologies and the production of strongerand lighter materials. The trend ofminiaturisation reflects the growingdemands of information technology,helping people around the world to sharean ever increasing amount of written word,images and sound.

“Accurate downsizing of bulk materialsor thin films into the nanometrescale,referred to as the ‘top-down’ approach, todate remains challenging and costly. Myproject proposes chemically to synthesisenanostructures that intrinsically provide thedesired optical and electronic properties,and assemble them into novel optical devicearchitectures. A major challenge of such a‘bottom-up’ approach, and a fact thatnever fails to fascinate me, is the size-scaleof operation. Some structures are the sizeof a DNA strand. Using these structures,this whole text could be written on ahuman hair. I am excited about integratinglight sources with dimensions smaller thanthe wavelength they emit. Subwavelengthphotonics will allow optical communicationto share the logic of miniaturisation thatrevolutionised electronics before.

For further details please visitStephan’s webpages: www-g.eng.cam.ac.uk/edm/people/sh315.html

Three recent Fellowships in the Department

Dr James Dawson an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellow

Dr Katherine Heller an EPSRC Post Doctoral Research Fellow

Dr Stephan Hofmann a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellow

Dr James DawsonDr James Dawson in the Energy, FluidMechanics, and Turbomachinery Division ofthe Department has been awarded an EPSRCAdvanced Research Fellowship. The EPSRCoffers up to 50 Advanced ResearchFellowships annually to outstandingresearchers across its whole remit. Fellowsdevote themselves to research for the periodof the award (in James’ case five years), withthe expectation that they will have establishedan independent research career ofinternational standing by the end of theiraward. These are highly prestigious awardsopen to both outstanding new researchersand those already established in researchcareers.

The title of James' EPSRC Fellowship is:“Enhanced mixing by vortex dynamics”.Describing his research he says: “Considerablemedia attention has recently been given to thegrowth of air travel and its environmentalimpact. The Future of Transport white paperpoints out that air travel has increased five-foldover the last 30 years and is expected to tripleover the next 30 years.

“The fellowship has been awarded toinvestigate new mixing enhancementtechniques for the next generation of low-emission gas turbine combustors. The successof low-emission technology, often referred toas 'lean-burn', hinges on our technical abilityto control the rate and uniformity of fuel-airmixing in order to lower flame temperaturesand minimise emissions. Mixing is normallyachieved at a rate determined by theturbulence of the flow. However faster mixingover very short distances is needed. A possiblesolution for this is to introduce vortices locallyto augment turbulent mixing and dropletdispersion. Recent developments in high-speed laser diagnostic techniques will be usedto conduct fundamental studies into howvortices can benefit the mixing process andprovide both a framework for modeldevelopment and aid in a technological step-change.”

For further details please visitJames’ webpages:www.eng.cam.ac.uk/~jrd37/


Joy Warde, Outreach Officer here at theDepartment of Engineering, was one of asmall group of practitioners to receivespecial commendation from the Science,Technology, Engineering and MathematicsNetwork (STEMNET) for an outstandingcontribution to initiatives that encourageyoung people’s interest in engineering.

Funded by the Department of Trade andIndustry, STEMNET works with partners inindustry and education to run initiatives thatencourage a flow of creative young peopleinto the science, technology andengineering sectors.

The 2008 awards for Science andEngineering Ambassadors (SEAs) werepresented by Ian Pearson, Minister forScience and Innovation, Lord Sainsbury andJon Tickle, presenter of the TV showBrainiac at a ceremony at the House ofLords.

Joy was nominated for an SEA award bySETPoint Cambridge and St Alban’s RCPrimary School in Cambridge. In itsnomination St Alban’s wrote that, as afemale engineer, Joy had challenged pupils’stereotypical views of the profession, andhad inspired them to discover new skills,such as team work and problem solving.

Working with more than 120undergraduate and graduate volunteers, Joy

stages a busy programme of outreachactivities at the Department of Engineeringfor children, families and young people.Each year these attract participation byaround 2,000 people, many of whom comefrom a 20-mile radius of Cambridge.

Some activities are staged for schoolsand groups; others are open to the generalpublic. Regular free events such as theDiscover Engineering family workshops areso popular that they are booked up well inadvance. “Events like this are a greatopportunity for local families to visit theEngineering Department, meet some realengineers and complete a fun hands-onchallenge,” said Joy.

The overall emphasis is on hands-onactivities that encourage participants to getto grips with basic concepts such as flightand strong structures. The success ofinteractive sessions stems from well-plannedprojects, a plentiful supply of materials, andinteraction between participants (who maybe as young as six) and enthusiasticvolunteers.

“Volunteers get involved to share theirenthusiasm for engineering with visitingschool pupils and families, and also to getinvolved in the kind of activities many ofthem wished they could have done atschool,” said Joy.

Around 50 volunteers took part in theRocket Car Derby session organised as partof Cambridge Science Festival. “It wasfabulous to see families using some basicengineering principles to design, build andtest a rocket car – and also have lots offun,” said Joy.

For details of events and activities runby the Department of Engineering visitthe Outreach web pages at:www.eng.cam.ac.uk/outreach/.

Outreach work by the Department ofEngineering wins national accoladeThe educational outreach undertaken by the Department of Engineering to engage children and youngpeople in the challenge of hands-on activities – such as building rockets and planes, skyscrapers andbridges – has been recognised by a prestigious national award.

Joy Warde, Outreach Officer at the Departmentof Engineering

Student exchange programme with ÉcoleCentrale ParisFor eight years we have had a hugely popular undergraduate exchange programme for third yearstudents with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). We have been working to set up a parallelexchange with École Centrale Paris, one of the Grandes Écoles most distinguished in Engineering,boasting Henri Schlumberger, Gustave Eiffel, Andre Michelin, Robert Peugeot and Jean Pierre Peugeotamongst its alumni.

The wording of the legal agreementbetween the two universities has beenfinalised and the first students went toFrance in September this year. Two studentswill go in each direction in the first year.

The students were chosen based onboth academic and linguistic ability. Theacademic selection process is similar to thatcurrently used for the MIT exchange. Thelinguistic selection is managed by theDepartment of Engineering's LanguageUnit. Only students at an advanced level of

ability in French will be allowed toparticipate in the exchange. As studentswho have participated in the MIT exchangeprogramme agree, the opportunity to workabroad and get a global perspective isinvaluable.

The launch of the exchange programmeis timely and in keeping with the 'ententeamicale' that Mr Sarkozy and Mr Brownwish to nurture between the two countries.

École Centrale Paris


Daleks at the Department

Adam Strawson, a Technician in the Computing Group and DavidJames, who was an undergraduate and a PhD student, here at theDepartment, are both members of The Dalek Builders’ Guild,which is less a trade organisation than a loose affiliation ofinterested parties swapping hints and tips about making Daleks.Dalek building, it turns out, is something of a thriving pastime inthe toolsheds and garages of Britain.

Adam and David have been building life-size replicas of the Universe's mosttyrannical fascist dictators for some year’snow. Their creations are works of artcreated with highly skilled craftsmanshipand an incredible eye for detail.

“I've been a Doctor Who fan all mylife, but it was only when I had my ownhouse I thought, you know what wouldlook good in that corner – a full-sizeDalek,” says David with a grin.

David, a speech technologist, reckonshe spends “hundreds of pounds a year”on his hobby. Adam is more specific: hisnew series Dalek - which took 18 months’worth of evenings and weekends tocomplete (“I spend as much time as I can,but real life gets in the way sometimes”) -cost him £475, with parts ranging from achild's magic eight ball (£5) to a piece ofmagnified glass (a snip at 80p).

“We kind of evolve the best way ofdoing things,” explains David.

“For a classic Dalek eye-piece, youcan’t go wrong with a sugar bowl from

Wilkinson's, which costs £3. And if you goto Ikea you can buy three waste bins inpowder-coated diamond shaped mesh thatare perfect for the neck.”

“Both David and I build our ownDaleks purely for our own pleasure,although we do take them out and aboutwhen we can. We both attended aninvasion of the Manchester Museum ofScience and Industry last year where wehelped set a record of 70 Daleks in oneplace. There are often event days at theNational Space Centre in Leicester that weattend: www.spacecentre.co.uk/whatson/specialevents.htm

Dr Who series 4 started earlier this yearand Daleks have been featured. I’m surethat both David and Adam have beenwatching avidly to pick up the latestdesign features ready for their nextcreations.

More of Adam’s Daleks can be seenon his website at:www.strawson.freeuk.com/dalek/

Dalek builders David James (left) and Adam StrawsonPhoto courtesy of Cambridge Evening News

Nationally, the proportion of women optingto study engineering and technology atdegree level is static at around 15 per cent.However, this does not reflect a simplehumanity/science divide as men no longerdominate all SET subjects at degree level;biological sciences boast an impressive 63per cent female studentship, physicalsciences attract 41 per cent women andcomputer sciences manage 17 per cent.

“One of the problems is the reducingnumbers of students, both male andfemale, willing to study maths and physics,which is the precursor to getting intoengineering,” says Dr Sue Ion, vicepresident of the Royal Academy ofEngineering and former director oftechnology at British Nuclear Fuels.

The difficultly in attracting women toengineering appears to be one of imageand the misconception that engineering issynonymous with car mechanics and greasyoveralls.

Helen Randell is studying engineering atCambridge, where 27 per cent of thestudents on the engineering courses arefemale, well above the national percentageof female studentship. She picked theprogramme after attending Headstart, oneof a number of education programmes runby the Engineering Development Trust.Headstart, says Helen, opened her eyes tothe possibility that engineering could be a“legitimate career choice”.

She followed this up with a Year InIndustry placement at Nottingham EastMidlands Airport, where she was chargedwith extending the existing fire training rig.“This really confirmed that I wanted to doengineering,” she says. “I like the factyou're doing something different everydayand have to come up with new solutionsall the time.”

Helen has chosen to specialise in civiland structural engineering and spent lastsummer's placement working on a junctionof the A1. “People think I'm mad because Iam so excited about this,” she says. “But Ican now drive up the A1 and point to thejunction and say I did that.”

Women inengineeringThe engineering sector is calling for more female recruits. Despite bright ideasand bold initiatives designed to attract more women intoscience, engineering andtechnology (SET), statisticsprove that the gender gap isnot lessening.


Rocket Car Derby a soaringsuccess

The Department's Rocket Car Derby held in March as part of theCambridge Science Festival 2008 was described as “an enormoussuccess on all fronts” by Professor Keith Glover, Head ofDepartment.

The event, sponsored by Research CouncilsUK, was a hands-on activity day in whichfamily teams designed, built and testedrocket powered cars. The activity was aimedat children aged 6-13 to show them thefun, creativity and relevance of engineering.

Over 900 people participated in theevent resulting in the construction of 600rocket cars. Carol Vorderman, Patron of theFestival, also attended.

The cars were constructed around asimple rolled paper tube capped at oneend. They were propelled up and off aramp using an electrically-controlledcompressed air launcher. Participantsinvestigated the variables which affect thedistance travelled; these include wheelposition, body design, car weight and theaddition of wings! All teams were able totake home a 'what next?' ideas kit whichwill allow them to tackle further propulsionchallenges at home.

Participant feedback after theevent was glowing“We had a fantastic time and loved the factwe could continue designing and making at

home with the plastic bottle rocket ideaand materials. Thank you.”

“A super set-up and activity for sciencefestival. Well done everyone involved!’”

“Brilliant, inspiring and very wellorganised.”

The support of volunteers, striving toinspire the next generation of engineersand scientists whilst developing their owntransferable skills, was crucial to the successof the event. A team of 50 CambridgeUniversity engineers (staff, students andalumni) assisted the teams with their designand construction.

Joy Warde, the Outreach Officer here atthe Department who organised the event,said, “It was fabulous to see families usingsome basic engineering principles to design,build and test a rocket car – and also havelots of fun.”

Details of how to make your ownrocket car and a “try this at home”ideas leaflet can be downloaded at:www.eng.cam.ac.uk/outreach/CUEDresources/RocketCarDerby/index.htm

Helen Randell is studying engineering atCambridge

This is the real satisfaction of a careerin engineering: coming up with practicalsolutions, be it traffic flow or globalwarming. Helen says it's frustrating thatso many young women don’t evenconsider it as a career. “They are losingout on so many opportunities,” she says.“Once you have a go you find it's sodifferent from how you imagine it to be.”

Despite the more promising figures insome SET subjects, we must not becomecomplacent. The general picture inCambridge is one of continuing under-representation of women in SET. Therehas been little significant change to theoccupational hierarchy in all thesedisciplines where numbers of women fallaway at each level (undergraduate,graduate, post-doctoral, permanent staff),whether the baseline is low (e.g. inengineering) or high (e.g. biochemistry).

To help address this problem, theUniversity has become a Gold Sponsor ofCambridge Association for Women inScience and Engineering (AWiSE). Oursponsorship will allow AWiSE to continueproviding support, inspiration andinformation to women working in SET.The University actively encourages femalestaff and students in SET through ourWomen in Science, Engineering andTechnology Initiative (WiSETI). WiSETI'sremit is to improve the number of womenstudying SET, improve the retention andpromotion rates of women in SET and toraise their profile and increase their self-confidence.

For more information please visit:www.etrust.org.uk www.yini.org.uk www.setwomenresource.org.uk www.headstartcourses.org.uk


Footprinting is a tool for estimating the landarea required to sustain a population’s life-style. It tackles a central sustainabilityquestion: just how much of the earth’s bio-productive capacity do humans use? Answerfor a UK citizen: 314% of their fair share.Footprinting can reveal the components ofour life-style that have the biggest ecologicalimpacts. This data is the stuff of informedchange: how far could recycling and otherinitiatives take us, what would it really takefor us to achieve ‘One-Planet Living’?

The potential for footprinting tostimulate learning and change is beingresearched by Chris Cleaver as his fourthyear project. Chris, an undergraduate who issupervised by Peter Guthrie, engaged agroup of 14-15 year old students from HarryCarlton Comprehensive School in collectingdata to estimate and interpret their ownschool's Ecological Footprint. After anintensive eight weeks of surveying, samplingand processing the student group came tothe Department to present their findings toa four-person panel, which was chaired byPhilip Guildford, Director of Research, andincluded Professor Peter Guthrie, Dr. JoyWarde, from the Department, and Dr. KateBillings, Faculty of Education.

Participating in the footprintingprocessThe Harry Carlton year 10 students had splitinto three groups, each collecting primarydata for a different broad category ofconsumption. Faced with the task ofestimating components of the school's foodconsumption, a group member describedtheir approach. “We decided the best wayof doing this was to design a questionnaireto discover how much pupils would eat in aschool day…we first created a questionnaireand tested it, gave it out, then usedMicrosoft Excel to process the data”. Despitetesting, not all the problems were ironedout. “We weren’t specific enough abouthow to answer some of the questions; we’dbe asking how much fruit juice do youconsume a week and they’d write 3 downrather than a specific measure!”

Revealing results for the school'sgovernorsEach group’s results were then combinedand the total school footprint was estimatedat 0.8 global hectares per pupil. This is 45%of a pupil’s fair earth-share, to sustain an

activity taking less than 20% of their time.The students showed that the life-style areascontributing the most were ‘Shelter’,including the school’s electricity and gasusage, and ‘Mobility’, covering car and bustransport to and from school (both 35%).Meanwhile, paper and meat consumptionwere singled out as the big-hitters for‘Goods’ and ‘Food’ life-style areasrespectively.

For each area, the student footprintershad identified in their presentation simpleactions that could lead to significantreductions in ecological footprint. Will theseactions materialise? The lead-presenterthought so: ‘we’re going to continue theproject, and we're going to deliver theresults to the school governors…we musteducate staff and students on all theseissues and how they can reduce ourecological footprint’.

Joy Warde’s words of commendation aretelling of how the panel viewed thepresentation: “I’m really impressed. You’vedone a really good job of doing thepresentation with confidence; it’s nice tosee’.

Group-engagement inFootprinting: A strong conceptWhen the students and panel later sat downto reflect on the programme, one thing rangclear: the concept of participativefootprinting was a good one. As onestudent put it, “probably the best way tolearn it is to actually do it yourself; it helped

a lot to find out exactly how you can cutdown all these things, not just individuallybut as a group of people as well”. Perhapsthere was a wider lesson here about thevalue of engaging groups in change,something Philip Guildford acknowledged to Harry Carlton’s footprinters. “Personally, I found it quite inspirational, because I’mhelping with changes on this site”.

Can the programme go further andwider? Peter Guthrie has little doubt: “there is in here the potential for a nationalscheme to be developed to change theattitudes in schools in a reasonably scientificand analytical way”. Those optimistic wordsseem a fitting response to the day the young footprinters held centre-stage in the Department of Engineering.

About the AuthorChristopher Cleaver, a fourth-yearengineering student, conceived, designedand helped to implement the schoolfootprinting programme. After graduating, he intends to develop theconcept further, and is pondering models of dissemination. Chris did some ecofootprinting last year with schools inMauritius and this is an extension of thatwork. He is supervised by Professor PeterGuthrie, Head of the Centre for Sustainable Development.

For further information please contactChris, email: [email protected]

Young eco footprinters present findings to theDepartmentThe Department of Engineering hosted a pilot secondary education programme aimed at stimulatinginformed change to consumption practices through Ecological Footprinting.

Year 10 students from Harry Carlton School


Organised by the Department’s Staff-Student Joint Committee and CambridgeUniversity Engineering Society, this year’sProject Expo in May was a great success. Itwas bigger and more diverse than theinaugural event last year, with 19 displaysfrom both the undergraduate andpostgraduate communities. The exhibitsincluded projects, Undergraduate ResearchOpportunities Programme (UROPs), entriesinto international engineering competitionsand hobbyist projects from individualstudents. Prizes were awarded to the topthree exhibitors, as judged by theDepartment’s Dr Rob Bracewell.

David Wyatt, the lead organiser of theevent, said, “There are many innovative andfascinating projects taking place in theDepartment, both within and in addition toformal research and teaching. We hope thatby showcasing some of them at the Expo,we have not only given members of theDepartment a better appreciation of itsactivities but also shared our technical pre-eminence and our enthusiasm for hands-onengineering with the wider community.”

The date for next year’s Project Expo willbe announced in the Spring 2009 issue ofthe newsletter – all are welcome to attend!

The full list of exhibitors is asfollowsFirst prize: Luke Humphry: Flat panel speaker optimisationSecond prize: David Hodgson: Freehand 3D ultrasoundThird prize: Zareen Sethna: A sustainability approach to standards forrammed earth construction in Bhutan

Other exhibitors• Cambridge AUV• Cambridge University Eco Racing• Cambridge University iGEM2007 team• Cambridge University Spaceflight• Full Blue Racing• Jenny Auton: Optimising Ceramic Water

Filters for the Developing World• Chris Cleaver: School ecological

footprinting• Neil D'Souza-Mathew: Balancing of a

Robotic Unicycle • Paul Dickenson: Multiphase Flows at

Pump Inlets • Richard Marchant: Robot races• Andrew Nowell: RCISS - Remote

Computer Interface and Security System• Sithamparanathan Sabesan: TINA – The

INtelligent Airport• Hugo Scott Whittle: PICOSWARM – PIC

Online System for Weather, Automationand Remote Monitoring

• Fred Spaven: The Shed – an industrialrevolution in a semi-detached garden

• Jurgen Van Gael: Finding Software Bugswith Non-Parametric Bayesian Methods

• Hongwei Wang: Towards collaborativesimulation on the Internet

For more details on any project, pleaseemail David Wyatt: [email protected] visit the Project Expo website: www-g.eng.cam.ac.uk/ssjc/Activities-projectexpo2008.html

Student Staff Joint Committeewebsite: www-g.eng.cam.ac.uk/ssjcCambridge University EngineeringSociety website: www.cues.org.uk

Project Expo 2008

For the second year running, students from the Department haveexhibited projects to visitors from across the University and fromindustry.

PilkingtonPrizes honourteachingexcellence

Eleven of the University ofCambridge’s finest teacherswere honoured at a receptionlast month.

The Pilkington Prizes are awardedeach year to academic or academic-related staff who have distinguishedthemselves in teaching. This year'swinners include an earth scientist, a17th-century literature expert and anelectronics and photonics engineer, allof whom have conveyed theirenthusiasm and love of their subjectsto countless students.

The Vice-Chancellor ProfessorAlison Richard awarded the prizes atthe Møller Centre, followed by supperat Churchill College.

“Dr Tim Wilkinson of JesusCollege, a University Senior Lecturer inthe Department of Engineering,working in the Electrical Engineeringdivision, has a natural gift forteaching and delivers his courses withclarity and with humour.

He can inspire first-year studentswith fundamental electromagnetismand also explain complex specialistmaterial on optics andtelecommunications to fourth yearMasters' students. Tim has animpressive record in teachinginnovation, including his contributionto ‘Displaymasters’ – a unique multi-centre Masters' programme focusedentirely on display technology.”

Dr Tim Wilkinson, front row, second from left,with the other Pilkington Prize winners


Photography competition winners

The winning entry, ‘Blue Spikes’ was captured through a polarising microscope, this delicate image ofliquid crystals is one of dozens that are being exhibited online to reveal the inner beauty of engineering

First prize

Second prize, ‘First Light’ by Sam Cocks

Third prize, ‘Moth’ by Dr Ingrid Graz

There are two categories in the Department’s photographycompetition, one for staff and students the other for alumni. Asyou will see on these pages the quality of the images enteredwas exceptionally high, revealing some of the hidden beauty thatlies within engineering.

The pictures range from shots of towering wind turbines to rarely-glimpsed visions of tinystructures growing under laboratory microscopes. All were taken by staff and students atthe University’s Department of Engineering as part of an annual photographycompetition that encourages them to explore the artistic side of cutting-edgetechnological research.

Entries can reflect any aspect of the Department’s work, whether it takes place in thelab or in the field, but all try to show aspects of the subject which are beautiful,intriguing, amusing, or possibly all three.

The competition, now in its fifth year, was sponsored by Microsoft and judged bysenior academics from within the Department. The entries can be viewed online byvisiting www.eng.cam.ac.uk/photocomp/2008/

Other entries that were highly commended by the panel of judges reveal the fantasticinner structures of everyday objects, offer glimpses into microscopic nano-worlds, orsimply give a new, perhaps unusual perspective on the experiences of engineers workingin the field.

Second prize

‘Moth’ by Dr Ingrid Graz a ResearchAssociate at the Nanoscience Centre in theElectrical Engineering Division, ‘My topic isstretchable electronics. I create thin metalfilms that can be reversibly stretched andremain conductive. PDMS serves as ourplatform/substrate. PDMS is Polydimethyl-siloxane a elastomeric polymer and afterbeing reversibly stretched, comes back toits origninal size and form. These thin-metal films provide a platform for therealization of stretchable electronic circuits.We cast the PDMS into petri dishes bymixing the liquid polymer with a curingagent and after stirring, the mixture iscured for 24 hours at 70 degree Celsius.This photograph shows a multilayersandwich of gold and PDMS. The imagewas taken by optical microscope.

For more information contact: Ingrid Graz email: [email protected]

‘Blue Spikes’ was taken by PhD student Sonja Findeisen-Tandel, and shows liquid crystalsin their “mesophase” – the point at which they have ceased to be liquid but have yet tocrystallise fully. As the phase grows in the drop of liquid crystal material, molecules alignin different ways. Their alignment interferes with the passage of light causing it to twistand turn. In a microscope that uses polarising light, this is revealed as colours andtextures – this interaction of liquid crystals and polarised light is commonly used intelevision screens and the displays on our mobile phones. Sonja has the expertise tointerpret these images and identify the mesophase. Sonja explains, “I have synthesised alot of mesophases to investigate property-structure relationships and I was thinking itwould be a good idea show my best photographs to people who are not working onliquid crystals and amaze them with these beautiful images”.

For more information contact: Dr Sonja Findeisen-Tandel email: [email protected]

‘First Light’ was taken by Sam Cocks, thena first year student at the Department. Itwas taken at sunset, on 15th March 2007to capture the first night of power for thesecluded Masai village of Essilanke. Tomsays, ‘The village school provided the sitefor the first trial of a project that I spentthree months working on in Kenya:developing a small-scale wind turbinecapable of providing a practical solutionfor electrifying remote regions.’

For more information contact: Sam Cocks email: [email protected]

Third prize


The winning image in the Alumni Photography Competition was taken by Edith Lagendijkentitled ‘Rocks, Rigs and Roughnecks’.

Edith describes the photo as ‘View of the derrick from the dog-house. All machinery inthe derrick is remotely controlled by the driller in his little shack (dog-house) on the drillfloor. A massive pulley system (top drive) is used to connect the drillpipe to drill a hole toexplore for and produce oil and gas. On this rig we were drilling a 4 kilometre long production well for an oil development off the North-west coast of Australia.’

She went on to say, ‘As a reservoir engineer I have worked in the oil and gas industryall over the globe and, after 14 years, I am still fascinated by the industry; its grandeur, itsmulti-cultural people and its ever-developing technology.’ Edith graduated in 1994.

Other entries in the Department’s 2008 alumni photography competition can beseen at www.eng.cam.ac.uk/photocomp/2008/alumni_entries/

Edith Lagendijk, ‘Rocks, Rigs and Roughnecks’

Alumni Photography Competition Winner

‘Beautiful Blue Phase’ by Carrie Gillespie

‘Larger lenses’ by Timothy Wilkinson

‘The surface of a hyper-complex escape-timefractal’ by Rich Wareham

‘Fishtail in the green sea’ by Sungjune Jung

Many of the photographs can be viewed, along with thewinning and commended entries from previous years, on the Departmental website at, www.eng.cam.ac.uk/photocomp/2008/www.eng.cam.ac.uk/photocomp/2008/alumni_entries/

FACT BOX

‘Laser drilled micro-sized hole array’ by Kun Li

’Growing of a nematic mesophase’ by Sonja Findeisen-Tandel

‘Pouring the Critical Joint’ by Robin Firth

A selection of competition entries


Michelle suggests that these materials willbe too expensive to replace materials intypical construction and buildingapplications but can be developed for use inparticularly demanding sections of advancedarchitecture as well as other specialiststructural applications. In addition, theprinciples involved might be used to makematerials that have bone-like qualitieswithout being so obviously directly likebone. Michelle is interested in the generalprinciples found in bone, not just thespecific details of collagen-mineral orgelatin-mineral materials.

There is growing interest in materialsand systems which imitate nature.Researchers are looking towards nature forinspiration because natural materials arecomposites, harnessing the best features ofseveral different material types andcombining them into a material that is morethan the sum of its parts. Biomimeticmaterials synthesis aims to take theattractive features of a biological systemand mimic either the material itself or theprocess that naturally occurs when thematerial is made.

Natural bone is of particular interest toresearchers because of its unusualcombination of mechanical properties: boneis stiff and tough, but it is lightweight.

Bone materialBone material can be described at fourlevels of detail:• Macroscopic: bone as seen by the naked

eye • Tissue level: there are two main

categories of bone tissue: spongy bone(trabecular bone) which makes up theinterior of the bone and compact bone(cortical bone) which forms the surface

• Cell level: the tissue is made up of cellswhich are continually being formed andresorped

• Material (extracellular matrix): a mixtureof nonliving material which acts asscaffolding for the bone. This consists ofinorganic and organic parts; collagenfibres, ground substance, and bone salts.

Fabricating bone-like materialTraditional tissue engineering uses foreignliving cells seeded onto an artificial scaffoldstructure and small molecules, such asgrowth factor, to create bone-like material.Novel approaches to biomimetic materialsynthesis can be described as “bottom-up”, and emphasize cell-freepathways to create bone-likestructures. There are at leastthree different approaches:

The first method involvesmixing nanoscale organic andinorganic material to create acomposite. Mineral particlesare mixed into a string ofmolecules known as apolymer network. Thismethod is similar totraditional composites technology but hereself-assembling biological polymers(collagen) are used. This method creates asimple bone-like material.

The second method is to add thecomponents of the mineral phase (ratherthan formed mineral particles) to the self-assembling biopolymer network. The aim isthat the mineral nucleates on specific sitesin the network and forms an organisedcomposite on a finer scale.

The third method involves mineralformed in situ simultaneous to formationof the biopolymer network. Mineralcomponents are added to monomers, thesmall molecules that link together to formthe biopolymer. The biopolymer and themineral phase grow together “naturally”,creating a material which further resemblesbone.

In all three cases the biopolymersautonomously build themselves from thebottom up as the individual componentscontain enough information to build atemplate for a structure composed ofmultiple units. Self-assembling biopolymersreduce the need for energy-intensiveprocessing steps. It is hoped that for allthree of the above approaches the self-assembly of the biopolymer will lead to awell-ordered structure with few defects.

Researchers are using biomimeticprocessing to create a wide variety ofbone-like materials. They commonly usecollagen and gelatin, but other materialssuch as silk and synthetic peptides havealso been used. Future studies will include multi-component organic matrices with both protein and sugarcomponents.

Applications of bone-likematerialHistorically, the creation of bone-likematerials has been driven by clinical andmedical research, emphasising the medicaluses for bone replacement. Michelle’sresearch focusses on other possible usesfor materials that have bone-likeproperties, where although the materialsinformation is obtained from naturalobjects, including biological tissues, theend-applications are industrial.

Bone-like material couldpush the current limits ofarchitecture, where the idealmaterial would be verystructural with exceptionalmechanical properties butalso very lightweight. Michelleanticipates that as this “killercombination” is found inbone and other naturalmaterials, we should expectto see biosynthetic materials

used in buildings of the future. Michelleexplains that “anywhere you havesomething heavy and brittle, like bricks orconcrete, you might be able to use a bone-like material as a replacement where youwould need less material (i.e. thinner andlighter sections) but still have excellentmechanical integrity. Michelle suggests thatthe first architectural application of bone-like material could be domes or otherlarger vaulted structures. Furtherapplications appear limitless. With suchpotential for biosynthetic materials, thisinteresting area of research is set tobecome increasingly popular.

For further information, please emailMichelle: [email protected]

Engineers “bone” up on biological materials

In a recent feature article published in Materials Research Society’sBulletin, Dr Michelle Oyen explores the potential uses of syntheticbone-like material.

Bone material can be described at four levels of detail

Cell-free synthesis

With such potential forbiosynthetic

materials, thisinteresting area ofresearch is set to

become increasinglypopular.

(A) (B) (C)

Organ(Macroscopic level)

Tissue level

Cell level

Material(extracellular matrix)


Image processing projectThe project aim was to find an imagecompression technique that producescompressed images with the best subjectivequality. In image compression, the goal is toreduce as much information redundancy inthe image as possible for efficient storage ortransmission. A well-known and commonlyused image compression standard is JPEG.

Irene's project focussed mainly ontransform coding, in which knowledge ofthe application is used to choose whichinformation to discard for compression.First, several signal representation/transformmethods were explored. These transformswere then followed by quantization (inwhich a range of values are compressed toa single value, for example, in the reductionof colours necessary to represent a digitalimage) and entropy coding (in which rarelyoccurring patterns carrying moreinformation are coded with many bits andcommon patterns which impart lessinformation are coded with few bits).

Data analysis projectThe project was an investigation intomethods of analysing data. Several dataanalysis methods were explored and appliedon several data sets, such as thetemperature of ice in the North Pole, or thenumber of lynx in a certain area. Bothparametric methods (in which modelstructure is specified prior to the analysis)and non-parametric methods (in which themodel structure is determined from thedata) were investigated.

Among the non-parametric methods

Fourier Transform was found to be anefficient tool to compute the frequency ofthe signal. However, its performancedegrades significantly as noise levelbecomes comparable to the signal. Differentfilters were designed to filter out noise. Aseach filter type has its own characteristics,choice of filter type depends on the outputrequirements. There are also trade-offs tobe considered such as computational cost.Data smoothing, which is useful to extractlong-run trends in the data, was alsoinvestigated.

Among the parametric models Bayesiananalysis was found to result in a moreaccurate probabilistic estimation if there wasstrong prior information. The use ofmaximum entropy regularization indeconvolution (in which additionalinformation about the solution is introducedin the process of reversing the effect ofconvolution to the original data) is studiedand its robustness under noise assessed. Itsuse in practical applications, such as opticaldeconvolution (deblurring of an image orimage restoration), was also investigated.

The Siemens Medal was firstinaugurated in 1883; at that time only onewas given annually. This year 18 of theleading Universities in the UK were eachinvited to nominate a student to receive oneof these prestigious awards. The two- inchbronze medals are struck at the Royal Mintas replicas of the original medal firstawarded in 1883, and the award includes agenerous cheque. The Siemens companyoffers these awards to raise the profile ofscience and technology, and to encouragestudents into the profession of electrical andelectronic engineering.

Irene Vidyanti receives a Sir William SiemensmedalIrene Vidyanti, whilst a finalyear student at the Department,received a Sir William Siemensmedal from Tom Young, ChiefExecutive of Siemens plc, at aceremony held at Siemens' newcorporate headquarters atFrimley, Surrey. Irene wasnominated for the award inrecognition of her excellentproject work in the third yearcoupled with her impressiveprogress in other parts of theElectrical Engineering course.Irene's third year projects areimage processing and dataanalysis.

Irene Vidyanti with Tony Young, CEO of Siemens plc

The Cambridge ScienceFestival attracted over23,000 people; and the fourpodcasts were downloadedby 70,000 people in the firsttwo months alone.

FACT BOX


Warren’s essay, entitled “What makes agood lecturer”, points to factors such asenthusiasm, drive and passion whenassessing their attributes, and praisedexceptional educators who generously giveof their time after lectures.

But the idea to which Warren returnedthroughout the essay was the simple factthat education is a sharing process.

“Many lecturers receive very littlefeedback on their courses and in particularget hardly any expressions of gratitude”,commented Warren. “Students must takethe effort to give something back, to playtheir part in the sharing experience ofeducation.”

In his essay, Warren recalled lecturerswho used Plasticine and Lego todemonstrate complex engineeringchallenges and especially remembered hismechanics and structures lecturers playingSwingball in class to illustrate moment ofmomentum. He also praised the use ofreal-world case studies to illustrate thechallenges within the discipline.

“Engineering lecturers can gainconsiderable insights from Warren’s essaythat not only highlights memorablemoments but also stresses that a goodlecturer understands the learningperspective of students,” suggests CarolArlett, Manager of the Engineering SubjectCentre.

Run by the Academy's Subject Centres,the winner from each participating Centrereceives prize money of £250 and isentered into the main competition. It is atthis stage that Warren's essay went on towin the overall Subject Network prize of aToshiba laptop.

The Academy received over 400 entriesto the essay competition.

You can read Warren's essaybelow. Engineering is by its very nature a technicalsubject, where it is often all too easy forlecturers to succumb to the classic here-are-my-notes-which-are-a-carbon-copy-of-this-textbook approach to teaching. Afterall, how many ways can there possibly beof teaching Fourier transforms? And howmany times have we students heard“Unfortunately, this is quite a boring partof the course but it really is important”, acatch phrase commonly identified by

generations of young engineers as thebeginning of... an extremely tedious anddull hour...

Nonetheless, it must be said that it is inno way true that ‘good’ engineeringlecturers have become as rare as theMauritian dodo bird and I’m fortunate tosay that in my experience I have metseveral inspiring instructors; their influenceon our vision of engineering is incalculable.

Good lecturers trigger enthusiasm andare often passionate themselves abouttheir subject, even if that subject happensto be the design of operational amplifiers.Motivating 300 students at 9 o’clock on awet Monday morning is indeed no easytask and of course people learn differently,so what general methods catch students’attention?

Indubitably, humour is an importantfactor in grabbing students’ interest, but Iwould say that a good lecturer goesbeyond that stage. They are the ones thatrealise the power of visual demonstrationsthat are so frequently overlooked. Amaterials lecturer who demonstrates crackpropagation with plasticine, a fluidslecturer who demonstrates a wind tunnel,a control systems lecturer whodemonstrates proportional control withLego®: those are some experiences thatmade my lectures entertaining andmemorable.

Not used enough, I believe, is thepower of graphic imagery. We are lucky inthat engineering is a very visual subject.Pictures and even short videos illustratingreal-life applications and perspectives arealways welcome. Not justonce at the start of thecourse but throughout alllectures! Lecturers areoften engaged infascinating research,which can form the basisof interesting examples.Some go to great lengthsto prepare learning toolsthat complementteaching, like shortsoftware simulations orMATLAB® demos,demonstrating for example the closed-loopflight behaviour of a jet fighter. Somelecturers even set up online workspaces fortheir courses, and use Tablet PCtechnology allowing them to record and

broadcast online additional workedexamples, fully narrated by the lecturer.These tremendous resources really make adifference, and it’s even better whenlecturers make these available for studentsoutside lectures.

Equally engaging are lecturers thatdiscuss real-world case studies such as the

collapse of a particularstructure, the design of aworking radio, theselection of materials fora 400 tonne aircraft. OneI found particularlystunning was when alecturer described thestructural failure of a pipein a cyclohexane plant,and demonstrated thatany first year engineercould have spotted theinitial pipe’s design flaw.

What is that famous saying, again? A casestudy is worth a thousand words?

Exceptional educators implement avariety of these techniques in theirlectures. Good lecturers are also the most

What makes a good lecturer? A third yearstudent’s view

Warren Rieutort-Louis

Warren Rieutort-Louis, a third-year Engineering student, is theoverall winner of the Higher Education Academy Subject Centres’Student Essay Competition for 2008.

In my first year, I set up a website

uploading interesting links that I found

relevant and helped me understand the course material

better.


approachable and understand thelearning perspective of students. They arethe ones who generously give of theirtime after lectures to answer thequestions of the hoards of students whohave no idea where equation 5 on page 6of the notes came from, or of that oddstudent in the back row who thinks hehas invented a perpetual motion machine.Open-minded lecturers contribute somuch to our learning experience and gainremarkable respect with students.

Realistically speaking though, many ofthe comments I have discussed seem torequire a great deal of commitment onbehalf of the lecturer and infiniteteaching time given that, of course, thehard maths has to be done at somepoint... But, surprisingly perhaps, I firmlybelieve that it’s not only up to thelecturer. It’s all too easy for us students totake for granted what we have andalways ask for more demos, more videos,more recorded lecture podcasts, morefilled in notes, more worked examples. Itsurprised me last year to find out thatmany lecturers get very little feedback ontheir courses, and in particular get hardlyany expressions of gratitude fromstudents on extras they may have put inplace to try and make, say,thermodynamics more appealing. So

why bother? It’s a great shame. We asstudents must also make the effort to‘give something back’ so to speak, even ifit is just an expression of thanks or, forexample, sharing ideas and resources thatwe encounter in our private study. In myfirst year, I set up a website uploadinginteresting links that I found relevant andhelped me understand the coursematerial better. Some lecturers now linkto this site. Education is a sharing processand motivated lecturers are goodlecturers.

Interestingly from another perspective,many lecturers underestimate both theirstudents’ eagerness to learn about theirsubject and more importantly don’t realisetheir own abilities to be a ‘good’ lecturer.Some of the best lecturers I have had arenot stand-up comedians, intent onmaking semiconductor engineeringhilarious, but on the contrary they arepeople that give students a chance todevelop and learn by guiding them in theright directions, adding links to interestingweb-pages in handouts, posinginteresting challenges in lectures. One ofmy lecturers encourages creative thinkingand independent learning by handing outchocolate bars to students who find andemail him interesting applications/articles/anecdotes that relate to the

electromagnetics course, which he canthen show other students and use toimprove his lectures. Once again, aprocess of sharing.

Noteworthy of a mention is also thestyle of teaching of good lecturers. I haveknown good lecturers who write onblackboards, and good lecturers who usePowerPoint. Then again, I’ve also knownlecturers who doodle unintelligibly onblackboards and others face and readPowerPoints like a recipe book. Using avariety of these teaching tools isundoubtedly best; change and diversitymaintain interest.

Good lecturers have such an impacton our studies, just like good teachers atschool. My experience has led me to meetmany such people that have irrevocablyshaped the understanding of hundreds ofstudents, through enthusiasm, throughdrive, through passion. They may not allhave a “Professor ABC appreciationsociety” on Facebook, but they willcertainly have admiration and respect. Asan electrical engineer, I may never in mylife use the mechanical engineeringknowledge I gained in my first years, but Iwill certainly remember that Novemberday when the mechanics and structureslecturers played swing ball in class toillustrate moment of momentum.

This results from the commitment ofleading academics, the strong support ofalumni and the Department’s close workingrelationship with the Cambridge UniversityDevelopment Office (CUDO) for theUniversity’s 800th anniversary campaign.Only one other department in the Universityhas matched this performance.

Dr Alan Reece’s £5 million donation forthe Institute for Manufacturing’s newbuilding was the largest one-off gift givento a Department this year, matching anearlier donation from the Gatsby CharitableFoundation for this project. Also thanks tophilanthropy, Dr Garth Wells has beenappointed as the first Hibbitt Lecturer inSolid Mechanics and Dr Graham Treece hasbecome the new Lecturer in Engineering forClinical Practice. The Ashby Scholarship andtwo other research posts in Water and GasEngineering have been recently funded,along with a number of other projects.

Looking forward, we are about toidentify and define a series of newfundraising projects for a variety of postsand studentships in line with the coreacademic strengths of the Department and

its strategic themes. We are gearing up forfundraising for the development of theTrumpington Street site, once the University gives the go ahead. We are also seeking support for outreach toschools.

The Department is deeply grateful forphilanthropic funding for specific projects aswell as funding that allows Engineeringstudents and staff ‘The Freedom toDiscover’ – a critical 800th Campaign Goal.The latter enables our world-leadingacademics and students the unrestrictedfunding to pursue new ideas and push theboundaries of engineering in unexpectedways. While we have done very well so farin the 800th campaign, we have theambition to do much more.

The Department is now in touch withover 15,000 of its graduates around theworld. Quite a number have helped ourcampaign with not only money, but alsoideas and networking.

More news of fundraising plans andsuccesses will be forthcoming. Please do nothesitate to contact the Department if youwant to get involved.

For further information please contact,Philip Guildford email: [email protected] Liffy Gorton email:[email protected].

Fundraising success

Dr Alan Reece

Over the last couple of years, the Department of Engineering hassuccessfully brought in nearly £15 million in donations.

Adrian, now a Senior Scientist at MicrosoftCorporation in Redmond, USA, has won aprestigious Royal Academy of EngineeringSilver Medal for his outstanding personalcontribution with a commercial benefit toBritish engineering. Academy PresidentLord Browne of Madingley presented himwith the medal at the Academy AwardsDinner in London in June.

Adrian, aged 45, invented a new classof light-guide that works as a flat lens andessentially eliminates the distance aprojector needs to be placed from itsscreen. This opens the way to flat

projection and imaging devices.Cambridge FPD Ltd was set up in

1999 to commercialise Adrian’s ideas. It developed and licensed its opticaltechnology for a new, portable X-raysecurity scanner that is so thin it can even be slid down behind bags left beside walls.

“Adrian is a great innovator,” saysProfessor John Carroll FREng, who wasAdrian’s PhD supervisor. “At university heinvented toy bricks that could be stackedup into simple electrical circuits to teachchildren about electricity. He has an

excellent record of patenting andcommercialising his inventions and hisultra-thin light-guides are revolutionary.”Adrian comments “I am delighted toreceive this award, which I hope will beseen to acknowledge work by aremarkable group of forward thinkingpeople on some ideas I had.”

Further information on the awards canbe found on The Royal Academy ofEngineering website:www.raeng.org.uk/prizes/silver/

“Does Flying Cost the Earth?” presents themost promising technologies scientists andengineers are working on to reduce theimpact of aviation on climate change.SAX40 is one of the designs in thespotlight. In addition to displaying themodel, the exhibit describes thetechnologies that lead to its low fuel burn.

Ann Dowling, the UK lead of the SilentAircraft Initiative, explained that “theproject was originally to come up with aconcept design for a ‘silent’ plane, but indoing so, we also found that the design isup to 25% more fuel efficient.”

The exhibition runs until Saturday 15November 08. Museum director ProfessorChris Rapley said, “This exhibition is anideal opportunity for visitors to see howscientists and engineers are workingtogether to tackle aviation's environmentalimpact and produce the aircraft oftomorrow.”

The SAX40 exhibit has already receivedsignificant publicity, with coverage in theFinancial Times, the Evening Standard, BBCRadio 4, the Observer, and Smartplanet.

More information about the exhibitioncan be found on The Science Museumwebsite: www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/antenna/flying/technology/future_flight/

More information about the SilentAircraft Initiative can be found on theSilent Aircraft website:http://silentaircraft.org/


“Flying wing” model aircraft exhibit at TheScience Museum, London

A model of SAX40, the aircraft conceptual design developed as partof the Cambridge and MIT collaboration the “Silent AircraftInitiative”, is on display at the Science Museum, London, for six-months as part of an Antenna exhibition “Does Flying Cost theEarth?” about the environmental impact of aviation.

Flat-screen TVs… and beyondIt's not every day that Microsoft buys your latest invention, but that’s what happened to Dr AdrianTravis, a Cambridge Engineering academic. His idea for thin, wedge-shaped light-guides has beensnapped up by the computer industry colossus to drive a whole new way of interfacing withcomputers. The new light-guides can project and image light at the same time, enabling a host ofproducts to improve the human-computer interface.

CUER was formed in January 2007 and nowconsists of over forty Cambridge Universitystudents including Engineers, JudgeBusiness School MBAs, Economists andNatural Scientists. The student team issupported by the Department’s ProfessorPeter Guthrie, the Project Ambassador, andfinal year project supervisors from theDepartment.

On 8 June 2008 CUER embarked on thefirst solar-powered journey from Land’s Endto John O’Groats: the ‘End to End trip’. The934 mile route was undertaken in the CUERprototype vehicle Affinity, which has a topspeed of around 50mph. During the week-long journey the team engaged andeducated the public in the area ofsustainable transportation by displaying thecar at schools and public attractions.Scheduled stops included the city centres ofEdinburgh and York, as well as the EdenProject in Cornwall.

Team captain Martin McBrien said,“Designing and building the car has been

an exhilarating experience for all involved,with the many ups and downs, late nights,and breakthrough moments making thewhole project worthwhile. Underpinningeverything is the knowledge that thetechnologies being applied – batteries,electric motors, advanced materials andphotovoltaics – will become more and morerelevant. Sustainable transportation is nolonger an issue for the future, but for today.Oil prices are high so knowing thattravelling on free energy from the sun ispossible, brings real hope.”

Jia-Yan Gu, CUER Outreach Officer, said,“It was a great opportunity engaging withschool children and the public along theEnd to End route. We were able to spreadour enthusiasm about applying technologyto help solve environmental issues.”

CUER is now developing a secondvehicle to compete in the World SolarChallenge in Australia in October 2009. The challenge is to design and build a SolarElectric Vehicle to complete a gruelling

1,850 mile race across the Australianoutback using solar energy as the only fuel.The challenge is known as the ‘Formula Oneof environmentally-friendly motorsport’ andCUER will take on 40 solar racing teamsfrom around the world. The CUER entry willshowcase cutting-edge technologydeveloped in the Engineering Departmentthrough 15 research projects, carried out byfinal-year undergraduates.

CUER is currently seeking sponsorship tofund manufacture of their World SolarChallenge vehicle, and would welcomeanyone who is interested to contact theteam, email: [email protected], ordownload the sponsorship brochure fromthe team’s website.

CUER is supported by Platinum sponsorsPilkington and Hewlett Packard.

Please see the CUER website:www.cuer.co.uk for a complete list ofsponsors, or email: [email protected].


CUER prototype vehicle Affinity

Cambridge University Eco Racing solar cardrive across Britain

This year Cambridge University Eco Racing (CUER) have designed and built the first solar-powered carto drive legally on UK roads.


In the world of technology, expandingknowledge results in shrinking products.Laptops, mobile phones and MP3 playersare as small as their components allow.Companies are constantly battling to maketheir products faster, smarter and smaller.Conventional memory chips in electronicdevices are made up of transistors,resistors, and capacitors built in layers on asilicon wafer through a photolithographicprocess, during which precise patterns areetched on the silicon to form the chip.Today's technology allows several milliontransistors to be built on a piece of siliconthe size of a pinhead, but manyresearchers believe this form of memoryhas been pushed to its limits.

In computing, information is stored inbits which can have one of two possiblevalues or states: 1/ON or 0/OFF. The mostcommon type of memory in use today isvolatile random-access memory (volatileRAM) which requires a power source tostore data. Volatile RAM maybe divided into two types:dynamic and static (DRAM andSRAM). In DRAM eachmemory cell can consist simplyof one capacitor and onetransistor. The capacitor holdsthe bit of information, thetransistor acts as a switch,letting the control circuitry onthe chip read the capacitor orchange its state (e.g. from ONto OFF). Reading the state ofthe capacitor destroys the information in itand so the read operation must befollowed by a write operation in which thestate of the capacitor is restored. Thecapacitor consists of two charged layersseparated by an insulator. The capacitorleaks charge and the informationeventually fades unless the capacitorcharge is refreshed. The thinner insulatorsget the more they allow charges to tunnelthrough.

The second type of volatile RAM,SRAM does not need to be periodicallyrefreshed and so has significantly fasteraccess times than DRAM. It also requiresless power in operation. However, sixtransistors are required to form a singleSRAM cell. Although inferior to SRAM,DRAM is used because the small number

of components required means that a cellcan occupy less area on a silicon chip.Another factor affecting the area a cellrequires is the size of the componentsthemselves. Decreasing component sizesand increasing silicon wafer sizes are themajor factors in driving down the cost ofsilicon devices. However, it is becomingincreasingly difficult to achieve reducedfeature sizes in the manufacturing process.Complex and expensive fabricationtechniques have been developed to keeppace with the demand for cheaper andfaster silicon-based memory.

Researchers have been trying to createelectromechanically driven switches smallenough to rival transistor-switched silicon-based memory. Unlike transistors,electromechanically driven switches containmoving parts. Not only doelectromechanical devices have excellentON-OFF ratios and fast switchingcharacteristics, but the physical separation

between the switch and thecapacitor in such devicesmeans the data leakageproblem is significantlyreduced. However, until nowthe technology has not been aviable alternative to silicon-based arrangements because itinvolved larger cells and morecomplex fabrication processes.

Professor Amaratunga andhis team have remedied thesedrawbacks by creating a novel

nanoelectromechanical (NEM) switchedcapacitor based on vertically alignedmultiwalled carbon nanotubes (CNTs).Rather than creating memory chipsthrough a photolithographic process,nanotubes are grown in place on a siliconwafer by allowing a carbon-carrying gas toabsorb onto a hot nickel surface, whichacts as a catalyst for the nanotube growth.The length of time for which the nanotubeis grown determines its length, which inturn determines its mechanical propertiessuch as stiffness and resonant frequency.The resonant frequency of the nanotubestructure determines the maximumswitching speed of the NEM switch and itsstiffness determines how much charge isneeded to deflect it into contact with theother element of the cell.

One nanotube which stores an electriccharge bends toward a static nanotube.When the two touch, an electrical contactis created and charge can flow to acapacitor structure formed around thestatic nanotube. This charge is used torepresent a bit of information; a chargedcapacitor represents 1/ON and anuncharged capacitor represents 0/OFF. Thevertical nature of the NEM capacitorstructure allows for high integrationdensities, reducing both process costs andsize requirements. There is a sharptransition between the ON and the OFFstate of the switch which means that avery small difference in voltage can changethe state of the device, reducing theamount of power required for itsoperation.

Nanoelectromechanical devices basedon carbon nanotubes have been reportedpreviously, but this is the first timeresearchers have been able to control thenumber and spatial location of nanotubesover large areas with the precision neededfor the production of integrated circuits.

These results have been reported in apaper in the December 23, 2007 onlineedition of Nature Nanotechnology:“Nanoscale memory cell based on ananoelectromechanical switchedcapacitor”. www.nature.com/nnano/journal/v3/n1/full/nnano.2007.417.html

Professor Amaratunga has produced a novelmemory device set to rival transistor-switchedsilicon-based memoryWorking with an international group of researchers, ProfessorGehan Amaratunga has produced a novel memory device which isset to rival transistor-switched silicon-based memory.

NEM switch fabrication steps. I. Metallic multi-walled nanotubes are grown from catalyst dots

defined by electron-beam lithography. II. Thenanotubes are coated with an insulating layerof silicon nitride. III. Chromium is sputtered to

form the capacitor on the source electrode. IV.A wet etch exposes the nanotube on the drain

electrode, which is the moving part of theswitch.

The length oftime for which the nanotube is

grown determinesits length, which

in turn determinesits mechanical

properties


The Full Blue Racing team; Barnabas Sleep,Graeme Leese, Helen Makey, James Warner,Richard Barnwell, Jon Watson, JenniWhitfield, Katherine Ward, Nikhil Garrettand Tom Dix built a prototype Formula-stylecar which they raced at theHockenheimring, the home of the Formula1 German Grand Prix, to take part inEurope’s biggest student motor sport event– ‘Formula Student Germany 2008’.

Formula Student is an internationaldesign competition set up to develop theengineers of the future by developing skillsin teamwork, budgeting (both time andmoney,) and promotions, in addition tosound practical engineering skills. Thecompetition challenges students to designand build an open-wheeled racing car fromscratch, then go racing! The team from theUniversity of Cambridge competed against77 other student teams from across theglobe in the four day contest from 6-10August for a chance to win this covetedtitle.

Fifteen engineering undergraduates setoff for Germany. They spent three daysrunning a series of tests on their car, beforeracing both against the clock and othervehicles in four events on the track. At thesame time the team was judged on thedesign of the car and a full business pitchand cost report were presented.

The team was pleased with their effortsin the 2008 competition. The car lasted 19of the 27 laps of the endurance race (onlyaround 35% of teams complete the event).Throughout these laps the car was within 5seconds of the fastest UK teams – anencouraging result given that setup timewas limited by electrical problems early inthe competition. They also came second ofthe UK teams in the cost event.

Nikhil Garrett was both the Team Leaderand one of four drivers in the team. Hesaid: “The competition is designed forteams of university students to competeagainst each other. This is the second yearthat we have taken part. Last year was alearning curve for us and we aimed to see ifit was possible for us to build a car fromscratch, and we did. This year we have anew chassis and a lot of new parts butthere are one or two things that workedwell last year and we have decided to carryacross.”

Full Blue Racing’s vehicle is powered bya Yamaha R6 motorbike engine whichallows the car to accelerate from 0-60mphin four seconds. Virtually all the other partsof the car are designed, developed and builtin house by members of the team.

The team faced a series of tests andjoined the other teams in givingpresentations about their vehicles,

explaining how they put them together andhow they kept within their individualbudgets. They also pitched to a ‘dragonsden’ style panel, imitating a start-upcompany with a prototype vehicle to sell.

Teams from 5 continents then competedagainst each other in four races designed totest their speed, handling, endurance andfuel consumption, including a 22km race onthe track.

The competition this year was won bythe Technical University of Delft fromHolland. The winning team is not just theteam with the fastest car, but the team withthe best overall package of construction,performance, and financial and salesplanning.

The success of the 2008 competitionhas encouraged everyone to strive toimprove for the 2009 event. Work hascommenced on the design for the 2009entry and in order to complete the build theteam is looking to secure at least £10,000sponsorship.

For more information on the team visit their websitewww.fullblueracing.co.uk For more information on the ‘FormulaStudent Germany’ event visit:www.formulastudent.de

Photo courtesy of Cambridge News

Engineering students race off to Germany

A group of students from the Department pitted their wits against top engineering undergraduatesfrom across the globe over the summer.


Cambridge and IITB have signed a jointMemorandum of Understanding (MOU) andtheir first collaboration agreement whichfocuses on Nanoscience. On the Cambridgeside the collaboration is primarily betweenthe Department of Engineering and theDepartment of Materials Science withProfessor Mark Welland and Dr AshwinSeshia the leads for Engineering andProfessor Alan Windle the lead for MaterialsScience.

Under the agreement, funding will bemade available for ten students to pursuethree-year PhD courses at Cambridgethrough the Cambridge CommonwealthTrust. In addition there will be support travelby senior academic staff between the twopartnering universities.

Professor Welland commented:"The quality of research students and

the new facilities at IIT Bombay provide for

a world leading platform on which toestablish a long term and truly reciprocalresearch relationship with IITB."

The MOU, which was signed byProfessor Alan Windle on behalf ofCambridge Vice-Chancellor Professor AlisonRichard, and IIT Bombay Director ProfessorAshok Misra, paves the way for numerousfuture research collaborations.

For more information on the Cambridgeand IIT Bombay MOU, see the CambridgeUniversity article "IIT Bombay andCambridge sign MOU with initial focus onNanoscience" at www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2008041601

Details of Professor Welland and DrSeshia's research can be found on theCambridge Nanoscience Centre website:www.nanoscience.cam.ac.uk/index.php

Nanoscience at forefront of collaboration withIndian Institute of Technology BombayOver the past 3 years, Professor Mark Welland has been workingclosely with the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB) toestablish a long term relationship which has now come to fruition.

Professor Mark Welland.

Engineering Design Centre paper is a leadingDesign journal’s most downloaded paper over7 years

A paper by Nathan Crilly,James Moultrie and JohnClarkson from theDepartment's EngineeringDesign Centre (EDC) isofficially the mostdownloaded paper from thejournal Design Studies’website over the last sevenyears. This achievement isparticularly impressive asother articles in the rankingswere published much earlierthan the 2004 paper.

“Seeing things: consumer response tothe visual domain in product design”discusses the ways in which productdesign can influence consumers.Despite a wide variety of literature onthis subject, there lacked a coherentand comprehensive review of researchIllustration of how design and communication might be compared (art credit: Carlos Cardoso).


Malcolm Bolton, Professor of Soil Mechanicsand Director of the Schofield Centre forGeotechnical Process and ConstructionModelling, was elected for his outstandingcontributions to soil mechanics andgeotechnical engineering.

The author of 170 publications in theseareas, his research has focused ongeotechnical centrifuge testing, thefundamentals of soil mechanics, and theirapplications to such practical problems asretaining walls and offshore pipelines.

His work has carried him into lessobvious fields, such as sugar refining andneuropathology. In the latter field, he iscurrently conducting collaborative workexamining the deformation of a cellularmatrix suffused with spinal fluid, includingsimulations using geotechnical software, oftumour growth and hydrocephalus.

Norman Fleck, Professor of Engineeringand Director of the Centre forMicromechanics, was elected for his seminalcontributions to solid mechanics.

His work established the basicunderstanding of size effects in plasticity,the compressive failure of composites, theoptimal design of metallic foams and latticematerials, powder compaction theory, andthe mechanics of ferroelectrics.

The Royal Academy of Engineering wasfounded in 1976 to promote theengineering and technological welfare of

the UK. Its fellowship includes the country’smost eminent engineers. The Academyprovides independent, impartial advice toGovernment, works to secure the nextgeneration of engineers and provides avoice for Britain’s engineering community.

The Academy, which promotes theengineering and technological welfare ofthe UK, has elected leading engineers fromcommercial engineering and some of thecountry's most visionary academics.

“Our new Fellows are among the verybest engineers working in the UK today,”says Academy President Lord Browne ofMadingley. “They are pushing the technicalboundaries across the most challengingfields from medical imaging to aeronauticsand energy technology. Together theydemonstrate that engineering is at theheart of modern society.”

Founded in 1976, The Royal Academyof Engineering promotes the engineeringand technological welfare of the country.The fellowship – comprising the UK’s mosteminent engineers – provides the leadershipand expertise for its activities, which focuson the relationships between engineering,technology, and the quality of life. As anational academy, the RAE provideindependent and impartial advice toGovernment; work to secure the nextgeneration of engineers; and provide avoice for Britain’s engineering community.

Royal Academy of Engineeringannounces new Fellows for2008

Professors Malcolm Bolton and Norman Fleck from the Departmentof Engineering, Cambridge University are among the 44 pioneeringengineers elected this year to the Royal Academy of Engineering inrecognition of their distinguished work in the field.

Malcolm Bolton Norman Fleck

in the field. The three authorshighlighted three particular concerns:1. Researchers were presenting old

concepts with new language, andas such were continually re-inventing the wheel

2. Little-known or recent texts offeringsignificant contributions to the field were not receiving wide recognition

3. There was no general theoreticalframework on consumer responseto visual product design.

It is these key issues which the DesignStudies paper addresses and thedownload figures confirm how crucialthis work has been to the field.

The paper outlines the variousfactors which influence how and whywe respond to visual product design.This process is defined as“communication through design” andencompasses the following:• Aesthetic impression (how pleasing

the process of regarding theproduct is)

• Semantic interpretation (what theproduct appears to communicateabout itself)

• Symbolic association (what theproduct appears to symbolise aboutits user)

• Aesthetic, semantic and symbolicinteraction (how these factorsinteract to create a consumerresponse)

• Visual references (existing forms orartefacts which consumers associatewith the design)

• Moderating influences (otherfactors such as product quality anddistractions in the environment)

The paper raises implications for further research, suggesting that itwould be useful to assess whetherdesigners are conscious of thetheoretical concepts outlined above and what processes and checks areused to ensure that the visual objectives in the design have been met. The authors have recentlycompleted a follow-up article thataddresses these research questions.

The article “Seeing things:consumer response to the visualdomain in product design” can befound by using the search facility onwww.sciencedirect.com

For more information on the team’sresearch, see the EDC website:www-edc.eng.cam.ac.uk/


The projectsDeli'tail

Deli'tail is cocktail machine that allows barsto offer cocktails fast and efficiently, whilstensuring that quality is consistent byremoving human error. It replicates themixing process, which has been brokendown into its elemental steps with a timeand motion study. The machine selectsingredients from the top of the machine,adds water to mimic the effects of meltingice, thoroughly mixes the cocktail throughproprietary technology, chills the mix to arefreshing temperature (around 4oC) andthen pours the finished cocktail into theglass. Team: Jonathan Thompson, Chao Wang,Corentin Roux Dit Buisson, AndreasPetsas.

Automated iron

Development of technology to enablean automated ironing appliance. Representing a radical breakthrough inironing technology, our product offers usersan automatic means of removing creasesfrom clothing, resulting in drastic time-saving for the busy user; unlike thetraditional dry or steam irons which rely on

manual operation. At the heart of theproduct lies an innovative contact-lesstechnology - SteamStretch(TM) - to tacklecreases regardless of garment fabric orshape.Team: Adrien Motte, Charlie Musgrave,Christina Zhang, Kate Hunter.

PR-Radio

A giveaway promotional FM radio foruse at major events. The PR-Radio is a novel marketing tool forbusinesses that wish to stand out from thecrowd. Our ear mounted radio provideshigh quality FM reception using re-designedelectronics that are lower cost and lowerpower than our competitors’ products. Inaddition, our radio offers the customer aunique level of customisation by allowingthem to specify graphics, shape and colour.This means the device can be tailored tomatch their company image.Team: Matthew Salisbury, Carl Morland,Kyung Park, Mikhail Turkin

Rhythmijig

An aid for deaf musicians and youngchildren that transmits a live beat as a tactile stimulus to the performer. The beat is input using a foot pedal by oneof the musicians and transmitted via a series of wearable receivers to each member of the group. The four studentsinvolved in the project came up with theidea after a visit to the Mary Hare School,the national grammar school for deafchildren. Meeting some of the pupils theydiscovered that some struggled to keeptime while performing in groups. While they could use an able hearing conductor,this limited the band's ability to practice on their own.Team: Michael Ansbro, Maria Katunina,Linda Kemp and Glen Walker.

Cambridge Manufacturing Engineering DesignShow 2008Manufacturing Engineering students at the Department's Institute for Manufacturing held their 2008Design Show last month, displaying a range of new products that they have developed as part oftheir course. Over the last year teams of three or four students have completed a major design project to develop a new product, with real businesspotential. Having first identified a customer need they have researched the market, developed original design concepts and created a fullbusiness plan.

The Design Show is held each year for an invited audience of local industrialists and designers. Students put together displays to explainthe technical and business ideas behind the products, together with design details and prototype models of the products themselves.

Intelli-binAn 'intelligent' high street litter bin thatautomatically separates aluminium andsteel cans and discards wrongly inserteditems into the general wastecompartment. This allows cans to betransported directly to metal recyclingplants, avoiding the need to send themto a special recovery plant and thusreducing transport costs andenvironmental impact.Team: James Colgate, Rachael Mell,Ben Richardson, Ken Zhang.


The Ergopip

A redesign of the precision pipette, oneof the most commonly used laboratoryinstruments, to address ergonomicissues. While current models satisfy theneed for precision and reliability, theirdesign falls a long way short in terms ofease of use. They are entirely thumb-operated and are known to cause cases ofrepetitive strain injury. The students havedesigned a comfortable, easy-to-usepipette, the Ergopip, which distributesworkload to the user's fingers and is just asprecise and reliable as existing versions.Team: Jonathan Fraser, Mark Evans, Shu Sun and Rehana Khanam.

Mosquito trap

A passive mosquito trap designed foruse in rural southern India, requiring noexternal power. This mosquito trap is designed for use inthe developing world, using locally availablematerials to minimise cost. Made ofdiscarded plastic bottles filled with pebblesand a mixture of yeast and sugar, the trapattracts human-biting mosquitoes. Thegeometry of the trap is such that onceinside the mosquitoes cannot escape. The

students have also designed an injectionmoulded model for the Western market,sales from which could subsidise the trapfor the developing world. The prototype hasbeen successfully trialled in Bangalore.Team: Andrew Boyce, Man Kit (Alvin)Lam, Rachel Milford and StephanieSgoda.

HeatSave Shower Tray

A novel shower tray for saving energyand money. HeatSave Shower Tray has an integratedheat exchanger that facilitates energyrecovery from waste water. Warm waterleaving the shower tray is used to pre-heatcold water entering the system so that lessenergy is required by the electric showerunit for heating. A typical shower with tworegular users will save around £30 per yearin electricity, equating to a reduction ofapproximately 150kg in CO2 emissions. Theproduct is a self-contained unit that takesthe place of a standard shower tray.Team: Helen Cavill, David Clough, Li Dong, Matthew Leung.

French plaiting

A device to simplify the difficult task ofFrench plaiting.The French plait is a simple method ofholding hair back from the face, making itparticularly suitable for playing sports,swimming, horse riding and general day-to-day wear. The problem is that it is verydifficult to do a French plait in your ownhair. The project shows that a hand-heldplaiting product is feasible, and with somemore development can be sold as aconsumer good. French plaiting requiresmethodical adding of hair into parts of themechanism, and is the logical next step inthe product's design and development.Team: Sally Clemo, Karina Ali-Noor,Gopal Rao

Portable Clean Air

A transportable device producing acolumn of clean air for use in fieldsurgery. This design aims to provide a localised areaof sterile air, via a portable, minimal-installation and easy maintenance system.The air will be filtered using a ‘highefficiency particulate air’ (HEPA) filter whichhas an efficiency of 99.97% at 0.3µmparticle diameter. The potential markets forsuch a technology are many but we areconcentrating on providing clean air sourcesto operating theatres in rural India, many ofwhich currently have no provision forproviding sterile air.Team: Theerasak Mingarcha, CharlotteKershaw, Abhishek Mandawewala.

For further information contact: Clare GilmourMarketing and CommunicationsManagerInstitute for Manufacturing01223 766141Email: [email protected]

A Higher Education FundingCouncil for England surveyrated Cambridge first in the country for free-of-charge public lectures, witha 42% higher attendance than anywhere else in the country.

FACT BOX

The lecture began with Adam Whitehead,who showed off his array of swimmingmedals, including a Commonwealth goldmedal and European Championships goldmedal. The speakers gave an excitinginsight into the world of engineering andsport and the ethical issues this raises.Engineering is not always seen by students

Sport, Ethics and Engineering of the OlympicGames


Tom James won a Gold as part of the Men'sCoxless Fours. Tom along with SteveWilliams, Pete Reed and Andrew Hodgerallied in the last 250m of the men's coxlessfour final to overcome rivals Australia. Indoing so they took the top podium spot,but the six minutes that it took to securevictory were the product of years ofsacrifice.

Tom said: "I think we were about oneand a half seconds down on theAustralians, but there was no sense ofpanic. We had this crescendo feeling in thelast 500 when we just stepped on and on,and suddenly the Australians weremanageable.

"It was very clinical how we did the last300-400 metres. To be honest, I'm not quitesure where it came from, but we had a lotmore power than I thought we had, eventhough we had been gunning it for thewhole race."

Tom (2002 Matriculation, Trinity Hall)has been selected for the world renownedMen's Four. Tom made his GB Senior teamdebut as a 19 year old in 2003, winning his

place in the men's eight and to a bronzemedal at the World Championships inMilan. Recently he has had some injuryproblems and missed the last Olympics.

Emma Pooley won a Silver medal inRoad Cycling in the women's time trials.Emma (2001 Matriculation, Trinity Hall) wasselected for the Road Cycling team. Emmawas a runner as a schoolgirl and made thetransition from triathlon to road racingpurely by chance while a student atCambridge, after going out training withthe local cycling club. She now combinesfull-time racing with a PhD in soilengineering at Zurich under the tutelage ofSarah Springman who was a lecturer hereat the Department. Most elite British cyclistsare full-time athletes, many of them havingcome through the system from junior level.Emma is a throwback to the days whenbike riders worked or studied alongsidetheir racing.

Tom Stallard claimed rowing Silver aspart of the Men's Eight. Tom (1998Matriculation, Jesus College) is a formerWorld Champion who represented Team GB

in the 2004 Olympic Games. A four timeCambridge Blue, he won a bronze medal inthe eight at the 2007 World RowingChampionships. Tom is studyingMotorsports engineering at Brunel.

Despite not making the winners'podium, the Department was also proudlyrepresented by Andrew Baddeley who madeit to the final of the 1500m.

Andrew (2000 Matriculation, Gonvilleand Caius) won the 'Dream Mile' in Oslorecently.

Before the 'Dream Mile' in Oslo, a Britonhad not won the mile since Peter Elliott in1991. When Andrew crossed the finish linefirst, his performance signalled whatathletics fans will hope is the end of a verylong lean spell for British middle-distancerunners. So lean has it been, that many fanswould not even have known about Andrewdespite his status as the top Briton over1500 metres. His progress has been steadyand mainly low profile since embarking onan athletics career after graduating fromCambridge. Andrew earned a double first inAeronautical Engineering.

Engineering alumni shine at Beijing Olympics

Four Engineering alumni represented Great Britain at the Olympic Games in Beijing, three havereturned home with medals.

A lecture for school children, age 12 to 15 years old, entitled‘Sport, Ethics and Engineering of the Olympic Games’ took placehere at the Department of Engineering. The two visiting speakerswere Adam Whitehead, a former European and CommonwealthChampion and an Olympian at the Sydney Olympics 2000, and Dr Gilly Mara, a Sports Engineer.

Emma Pooley (left) photo courtesy of Tim Williams Tom James Tom Stallard (second left)


as an important factor in sport in generalnor the Olympic Games in particular.However, the very core of all sportsfocusses on engineering and moderntechnology. Athletic tracks have changedfrom grass, to cinders, to the synthetic allweather surfaces that are used today andbasic markings for a pitch or arena havetransformed these surfaces to becomethe great stadiums of our age. Even thehumble football has changed from a pig’sbladder inside a laced leather cover –which doubled in weight in the rain! – tothe footballs of today, which are madefrom modern waterproof materials andretain their size, shape and weight in allconditions. Technological advances suchas the modern swimsuits worn by eliteswimmers, through to the prostheticlimbs and equipment designed to aidathletes who have a disability, were alsohighlighted. Students had theopportunity to meet and engage in alecture and debate with a sports engineerand an Olympic athlete, opening theireyes to the world of engineering andhow it has helped change the theatre ofsport.

The ‘Sport, Ethics and Engineering ofthe Olympic Games’ lecture, offered anexciting insight into the world ofengineering and sport. It was funded bythe Royal Academy of Engineering andsupported by the British OlympicFoundation. The lecture was organised incollaboration with SETPointCambridgeshire and was very wellreceived by the 180 school children whoattended.

University of Cambridge,Department of EngineeringEducational Outreach website:www.eng.cam.ac.uk/outreach/

Medical jargon ‘may harmpatients’

Dr Melinda Lyons of the Department'sEngineering Design Centre (EDC) said the“dead language” terminology, dating as farback as the 5th century BC, spreadsconfusion and could potentially put patientsat risk. She wants to see the language ofmedicine brought up to date and simplifiedby removing “archaic risk-prone terms”.

Writing in The Lancet medical journal,Melinda listed a wide range of prefixescommonly used by doctors which look orsound alike but have completely differentmeanings. Examples included "inter"(between) versus “intra” (within), “super”or “supra” (above) versus “sub” or “sur”(below), and “hypo” (low) versus “hyper”(high).

Melinda's paper in The Lancetdemonstrates the broad scope of the EDC’sfocus. The paper highlighted the risks topatient safety due to the confusion overlookalike and soundalike terms that aregenerated through the sector’s reliance onGreek and Latin terms. Unlike previousresearch, this paper identified the prefixesthat pose the greatest risk. The field ofhealthcare typically manages problems oflookalike / soundalike terms through “quickfixes” such as coloured packaging andhandwriting assessments, as well asencouraging “readback” of terms. Radical

reforms of the language would rarely beseen as a solution.

In many ways, the challenge arisingfrom the lookalike / soundalike terms issimilar to that addressed by the EDC'sinclusive design team, which seeks toeducate designers to consider those withimpairments or disabilities in order toensure products are manufactured withtheir needs in mind. The definition of an“inclusive language of healthcare” wouldensure that the safety of staff and patientsalike is not compromised throughmisreading or mishearing terms.

Effective design is not just about thework of engineers or designers. Byadvocating a systems approach, in order tocapture the many facets of the designprocess, the EDC requires the skills of manyother professions. For example, in the EDC’shealthcare design group, it is necessary tohave a good understanding of the needs ofthe sector. As a result a number of the PhDstudents have backgrounds in pharmacy,radiography and counselling, whilst Melindabrings expertise in human factors andsafety along with extensive experience inthe offshore and aviation industries.

Engineering Design Centre (EDC)website: www-edc.eng.cam.ac.uk/

Tabassum Jafri, PhD student and Dr Melinda Lyons

Much of the Latin and Greek medical jargon that makes up theexclusive language of doctors should be abandoned because itcould be harming patients.

During development McLaren invented adecoy name for the inerter (the “J-damper”) to keep the technology secretfrom its competitors for as long as possible.The inerter featured in the 2007 FormulaOne “spy scandal” when it was reportedthat the Renault engineering team failed tounderstand the purpose of the device froma McLaren J-damper drawing they hadacquired – see the FIA World Motor SportCouncil Decision, 7 December 2007. Thefact that the J-damper is an inerter wasrevealed in the Autosport article. CambridgeEnterprise, the commercialisation office ofthe University of Cambridge, has nowentered into a licence agreement withPenske Racing Shocks enabling Penske tosupply inerters to any team in Formula One.

The inerter is a device which provides aforce proportional to the relativeacceleration between its attachment points(“terminals”) which must be freely andindependently movable in space. A typicalrealisation incorporates a flywheel whichrotates in proportion to the relativedisplacement between the terminals. Thefirst publication on the subject, in which theword “inerter” was coined, was: “Synthesis

of Mechanical Networks: The Inerter” (M.C.Smith, IEEE Transactions on AutomaticControl, Volume 47, Number 10, Pages1648-1662, October 2002). A patent on thedevice had previously been filed by theUniversity.

The motivation for the inerter lies in thefields of electrical circuit synthesis andcontrol systems. Classical circuit theorydescribes how to build circuits with themost general passive electrical impedances.Only three component types are needed:inductor, resistor and capacitor. There is anunexpected problem in translating thistheory over to mechanical networks. Boththe spring and damper have two terminals,but in contrast, the mass element has onlyone independently movable terminal. Toachieve the greatest freedom to synthesizepassive mechanical impedances a newelement is needed which has twoattachment points and where there is aproportionality between force and relativeacceleration.

In a Formula One car the inerter can beused to improve “mechanical grip”, i.e. toreduce tyre load fluctuations in dynamicsituations. In conventional suspension

design it is common to explain the role ofindividual components such as springs anddampers in achieving the overall goal. It isthen natural to ask the question: what doesthe inerter do? Since the inerter is anenergy storage element (like the spring) andnot a dissipator (like the damper), anexplanation in conventional terms is notimmediately obvious. It is the fact that theinerter acts in combination with otherelements (springs, dampers and masses)that the overall goal is achieved. To exploitthe inerter the suspension designer is led tonew methods which have their origin inelectrical circuit synthesis.

It is pleasing that an idea which beganwith fundamental theoretical work in theCambridge control group has led to thishigh profile exploitation in motor sport.Work is ongoing in the group to bring otherapplications of the inerter to fruition, e.g. in(1) vehicle suspensions for conventionalroad vehicles, (2) the control of motorcyclesteering oscillations.

Malcolm Smith is Professor of ControlEngineering and Fellow of Gonvilleand Caius College. For furtherinformation please contact:[email protected].

Relevant links:‘Penske Racing Shocks to supply Cambridgeinerter technology in F1’ article:www.enterprise.cam.ac.uk/news.php?key=76‘Secrets of the inerter revealed’ article:www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2008081906

Department of Engineering


Editor, Jacqueline SaggersDepartment of EngineeringUniversity of CambridgeTrumpington StreetCambridge CB2 1PZTelephone: +44 (0)1223 748228Email: [email protected]: www.eng.cam.ac.uk

Designed by Cambridge Design Studiowww.cambridgedesignstudio.org

Published by dscimm groupwww.dscimmgroup.com

© 2008 Department of Engineering,University of Cambridge and contributorsas identified. All rights reserved.

Professor Malcolm Smith’s inerter raced inFormula One

It has been reported recently in the motorsport press that ProfessorMalcolm Smith’s “inerter” device and concept has been deployed inFormula One racing (e.g. Autosport, May 29, 2008, page 33, “MarkHughes on... A genius idea, and why McLaren hasn’t tried to stopothers using it”). McLaren signed an agreement with the Universityfor rights to exploit the technology in Formula One. After a rapidand confidential development process the inerter was raced for thefirst time by Kimi Raikkonen at the 2005 Spanish Grand Prix, whoachieved a victory for McLaren. The inerter had been used for thefirst time in practice by McLaren at the previous race at Imola.

Kimi Raikkonen’s McLaren at the Spanish Grand Prix 2005. Photo courtesy of LAT Photographic.

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