A partnership between First Bus in Bristol, the Centre for Transport and Society and the Engineering Modelling and Simulation group has seen UWE Bristol assessing the impact on local air quality of running hybrid buses in Bristol.
Dr Peter Kay and Dr Ben Drew, lecturers on UWE’s Automotive Engineering programme, have been out early to measure emissions in real time on the number 72 bus route from Bristol to UWE.
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council funding has been secured for 5 more intakes of PhD students in the FARSCOPE Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT).
Based in the Bristol Robotics Laboratory, this new funding continues a successful established partnership between the University of the West of England and the University of Bristol in robotics and autonomous systems research. Details about the CDT and the PhD places we have available for September can be found here.
The Royal Academy of Engineering (funders of our Curiosity Connections – Women Like Me project) are to host their third Frontiers of Development symposium, Monday 11th – Wednesday 13th March 2019 at the Wellcome Genome Campus, outside of Cambridge, UK.
Ensuring good health and well-being, providing quality education and advocating for gender eqality are a few of the Sustainable Development Goals that will be explored, as the symposium looks at factors affecting (approximately) the first five years of life. Participants will look at actions to help future generations to survive and thrive, in a transformed environment, drawing on the UN Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health (2016-2030) as a framework.
The sub-themes for the symposium will be:
The event is being held with support from Wellcome. For further details and to apply to attend by the deadline of 11th February 2019, please see the Royal Academy of Engineering upcoming symposia page.
Businesses and entrepreneurs across the West of England will be able to trial, adopt and develop robotics and smart automation solutions, thanks to a new £1 million initiative from UWE Bristol.
The SABRE Programme, which is based in the Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL) and receiving up to £534,693 in funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), will support small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) from any sector to explore benefits of these technologies and identify the most appropriate robotic equipment for their organisation. Support will be available through attending free workshops, or by applying to receive free or subsidised technical support.
Professor Chris Melhuish, Director of BRL
“We are very excited about the opportunities this new initiative presents”
More in-depth support, such as facilitating collaborations with talented engineers and helping them to develop, prototype, test and validate concepts, will be available for SMEs researching and innovating new products or services. This can be accessed through SABRE’s Technical Development Projects (TDPs).
For more information, please see this UWE Bristol news article . Potential applicants can register an interest online at www.rifbristol.com/sabre, or contact the dedicated SABRE team on 0117 3283296 or at RIFBristol@brl.ac.uk.
Dr Vanda Papafilippou, lecturer in Human Resource Management at UWE Bristol, is undertaking new research into engagement of female engineers with women’s networks and how this relates to their career identities. Please see below for details and get in touch with Vanda on
Vanda.Papafilippou@uwe.ac.uk if you’d like to take part, or for further information.
If you are a female engineer and relatively active in women’s networks (e.g. your company’s women’s network, WISE, WES, Bristol Geek Dinners, etc.), you are being invited to participate in a research project conducted by Dr Vanda Papafilippou (Lecturer in HRM at UWE Bristol.)
The study, aims at exploring how female engineers develop, enter, maintain and engage with women’s networks and the extent to which these networks contribute to their career identities. The findings of the study will enable engineering companies to (re)design their women-only networks in order to make sure that they empower and retain women engineers.
If you agree to participate, you will be invited for a one-to-one interview with Vanda (wherever works better for you). The interview will last approximately one hour and can be conducted any day and time between February and April 2019. The interview questions will be around: (i) your career history (background information); (ii) the range and nature of women-only networks you are currently participating in and (iii) if, and if yes how, your participation in women-only networks has impacted on the way you see yourself as an engineer (i.e. your career identity).
If you are interested in participating or if you require further information, contact directly Vanda (Vanda.Papafilippou@uwe.ac.uk)
Prof. Praminda Caleb-Solly, Professor of Assistive Robotics and Intelligent Health Technologies at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory, UWE Bristol and Head of Electronics and Computer Systems at Designability, shares with us her poem about integrating arts with science, technology, engineering and mathematics (so that STEM becomes STEAM) in this guest post.
One of my recent projects was an Innovate UK Long Term Care Revolution funded project called Connecting Assistive Solutions to Aspirations. The aim was to develop personalised packages of innovative products and services to help people maintain enjoyable, independent lives in later life.
The work included a review of currently available assistive technology and understanding older people’s aspirations. The findings and insights from the research helped to surface some startling issues relating to a mismatch between people’s aspirations and the type and aesthetics of the technology available. We also explored the changes and cuts in health and social care services and the impact these are having on people’s lives.
The problems are so complex that the breakthroughs needed require us to re-imagine and restructure how we think about the design of technology and its use.
When I received an invitation from the Knowle West Media Centre in Bristol to present at one of their community events, it was accompanied by the KWMC manifesto which included a call for action: Move from STEM to STEAM:
“restore the arts as a core part of the National Curriculum by expanding the priority STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) to include both the Arts and a focus on high-tech crafting and making”
Knowle West Media Centre
I thought this was brilliant – exactly what we need – it inspired me to write something creative for their event, drawing on the findings and experiences of our research participants. On hearing Lisa Brodie promote STEAM at our EDM away day, I thought I would share the poem as I am strongly in support of her initiative.
[A Plea for more Artistry in the Design of Assistive Technology]
by Praminda Caleb-Solly
3
shades of grey and if you are lucky aluminium with a touch of teal
It’s definitely not going to go with my snazzy hat, one with the velvety feel
What I see, assistive technology, bland icy steel
Economical and effective, should not mean lack of appeal
Light up my life – fill it with style, understand my contextual vibes
It will need more than integrals and executable files
More than inverse kinematics and the coefficient of heat
Find out what makes me squeal, feel my heart beat
Delight me, make me joyful
I know you are trying to make it easier, it’s not that I’m not grateful
But using this frightful grey mobility aid
Is making me feel downgraded and frayed
You can do better than giving me these dreary designs
You need to start with understanding what fits in my life
Not trying to force fit a solution that you feel will be right
Think about form, make it fun, make it bright
Fill my life with hope and desire,
Not the dread of reaching the end of my fire
3 shades of grey and if you are lucky aluminium with a touch of teal
It’s definitely not going to go with my Indonesian batik
Don’t think that you can get away with a covering of frills
I am not after a cheap set of tacky thrills
A revolution won’t happen just by thinking or wishing it,
What’s needed is a rainbow of skills to commit to it
A multifaceted team reflecting the wonders of life
Artists and craftspeople, sculptors and people people, to get it right
The challenges are immense – easy to clean and cost effective to buy
and we don’t want to go wiping out the butterfly
Sustainable manufacturing and ergonomics
Assembly times and economics
All the more reason to incorporate
Art history, sociology and fashion skills to colour coordinate
Bring in an equitable purchase plan
It’s not just about making money for the man
Light up my life – fill it with style, understand my contextual vibes
It will need more than integrals and executable files
3 shades of grey, aluminium and some teal, it might be straightforward
for just in time manufacturing and clinching the deal
But it’s causing my world to have an excitement outage
With your focus on STEM, my world’s experiencing an artistry shortage
Respond with sensitivity to my style,
Make it scream, make me smile
Fill my life with hope and desire,
Not the dread of reaching the end of my fire
UWE Bristol is involved in the development of new technology which will predict when part of a train track, signalling equipment or other devices at a station are likely to fail.
The system is currently in development and will also allow engineers to use Augmented Reality (AR) via a smartphone or a Head Mounted Display (HMD) to locate failing components or structure faults and read on-screen instructions in real-time to help them with repairs.
The project is led by engineering technology start-up Enable My Team (EMT), collaborating the UWE Bristol and smart engineering solutions company Costain.
A network of Internet of Things (IoT) sensors will initially be installed in 2019 in test site London Bridge Station. They will gather data on tracks and station facilities, such as ventilation systems, barriers or lighting before sending it to a software called i-RAMP (IoT-enabled Platform for Rail Assets Monitoring and Predictive Maintenance).
To read more, please see this recently published UWE Bristol news item.
UWE’s Women Like Me project, run by Dr Laura Fogg Rogers and Dr Laura Hobbs, was featured in a presentation about making STEM for everyone at the Association for Science Education Annual Conference https://www.ase.org.uk/annual-conference today.
Women Like Me is a peer mentoring and outreach project aimed at boosting female representation in engineering. The project pairs senior women engineers with junior women engineers to give them mentoring support as they start out in their engineering careers. In turn, junior women undertake engineering education outreach in schools and at public events in the Bristol and Bath area. Engineering is a creative, socially conscious, and collaborative discipline, and this project aims to support girls and women to make a difference in society.
The ASE conference is Europe’s largest Science Education Continuing Professional Development conference. In 2019 it took place at the University of Birmingham. “Women Like Me – Role modelling and outreach for women and girls in engineering” was authored by Laura Fogg Rogers and Laura Hobbs and presented by Laura Hobbs within their “Making STEM for everyone: reaching under-served audiences” session, as part of strand for of the conference for all education stages. The full conference programme can be viewed here.
UWE’s Women Like Me project, run by Dr Laura Fogg Rogers and Dr Laura Hobbs, was featured in a presentation about making Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths accessible to under-represented groups at the Association for Science Education Annual Conference today.
Women Like Me is a peer mentoring and outreach project aimed at boosting female representation in engineering. The project pairs senior women engineers with junior women engineers to give them mentoring support as they start out in their engineering careers. In turn, junior women undertake engineering education outreach in schools and at public events in the Bristol and Bath area. Engineering is a creative, socially conscious, and collaborative discipline, and this project aims to support girls and women to make a difference in society.
ASE’s Annual Conference is Europe’s largest science education Continuing Professional Development conference. The 2019 conference is being held 9th-12th January at the University of Birmingham. This National conference brings together the best speakers and practitioners all in one place with 504 sessions, 473 speakers and 2,000 delegates.
“Women Like Me: mentoring and outreach for women and girls in engineering” was authored by Laura Hobbs and Laura Fogg Rogers and presented by Laura Hobbs, as part of the Making STEM for everyone: reaching under-served audiences session of the conference.
A startup developing bionic limbs in the style of superheroes for children and adults has successfully raised $5.9m (£4.6m) million from investors including F1’s Williams Advanced Engineering Group.
Open Bionics, which developed in Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL), creates advanced multi-grip bionic hands called ‘Hero Arms’ for amputees. The company uses 3D technologies such as 3D scanning and 3D printing to radically reduce costs.
Open Bionics has achieved a price point that means their multi-grip bionic hand is the only advanced device affordable enough to be covered by national healthcare systems in major western markets such as the UK, France, Germany, and the USA.
The company launched private sales in May 2018 with the ‘Hero Arm’ already becoming the best-selling multi-grip bionic hand in the UK. Open Bionics has worked closely with the NHS for two years under a product development contract with the joint goal of being able to offer these life changing devices through clinics.
The team has already sold devices in France and Spain with goals to serve more European countries this year.
Open Bionics is the first company to create multi-grip bionic hands small enough to fit children as young as 9 years old.
The Hero Arm enables amputees to choose between different finger speeds and movements enabling the wearer to pick up small objects like marbles with a fine pinch to carrying shopping baskets with a full hand grasp.
Samantha Payne and Joel Gibbard, named by The Europas startup awards as the ‘hottest founders’ in Europe, founded the ‘tech for good’ company in 2014. The multi award-winning business developed its technology at BRL’s Hardware Incubator before relocating to the neighbouring Future Spaceinnovation centre at the University of the West of England’s Frenchay campus.
Samantha Payne, co founder and COO, said: “This funding enables us to serve multiple international markets and we’re thrilled to finally be able to deliver bionic hands to amputees and people with limb differences in the USA later this year. We’re exceptionally excited to receive this support from such high calibre investors who not only offer financial backing but incredible experience in commercialisation, measuring impact, and engineering high performance hardware.”
Joel Gibbard, co founder and CEO, said: “This investment provides crucial capital to help Open Bionics deliver on its vision of making advanced prostheses available to a much wider audience of limb-different users. We look forward to offering the Hero Arm in multiple international markets and continuing the development of great products that solve challenges within mobility and independence.”
Open Bionics has won awards for engineering and innovation including the £1 million prize for the AI and Robotics for Good award, the James Dyson award for engineering, and two British Engineering Excellence awards. The company also secured multiple licensing agreements from entertainment creators Eidos Montreal and The Walt Disney Company to create bionic limbs inspired by their most popular characters.
Matthew Burke, Head of Technology Ventures, Williams Advanced Engineering, said: “Williams Advanced Engineering is excited to work with the team at Open Bionics and share our expertise in product development systems. Alongside the Fund’s investment, Open Bionics will benefit from the engineering and technology experience at Williams and the investment management and growth experience of Foresight’s team of investment professionals. Together this aims to be an ideal combination to deliver for the sector, its customers and the wider UK economy.”
This blog was originally published as a UWE Bristol news item.
