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Engineering Week in retrospect
This year’s engineering week was a fantastic success it featured many new as well as our traditional and well-loved events.
The unveiling of the plaque at the Arboretum by Minister Barr, National President & Canberra Division President was well attended on a beautiful Canberra Day.
The Bus Tour “Natural Energy Tour” was a fabulous success visiting ANU, Woodland Mine and the Bungendore Wind farm. On board entertainment was provided by Adrian Piani and Colin Kish was an added feature.
Australian Transport Safety Bureau opened its doors and gave an insight into how investigations into some of Australia's most prominent air, rail and sea disasters are investigated and solved.
Fire Safety Workshop on “Fire Safety” was presented by ACT Fire Safety Section and ACT Rural Fire Brigade. Those that attended were shown how Canberra is served by a dedicated well trained and equipped team.
Engineering Games Competition, wereattended by over 400 students who showed their engineering expertise by building straw towers, bridges from spaghetti and mousetrap racers.
Discovery Trail tour of the Enlarged Cotter Dam was braved by many despite rail and wind.
Electric Vehicle Display attracted many Canberrans it featured new and old electric vehicles. The Voltron electric racing bike which can reach 180 km/h was a popular attraction.
I wish thank the many organisations and their staff that assisted in making this year’s Engineering Week a success.
A thank you is also extended to Helen Leayr for arranging media releases with Canberra Times and the radio interview with station Mix 106.3.
A special thank you to the Engineering Week team, volunteers and the Canberra Division Staff.
Andrew Montgomery
Chair Engineering Week.
Engineers Without Borders Challenge Monday 1 August 2011
A solar still to purify water. A hybrid solar and wind system to generate renewable energy. Plant-based composite roof tiles for shelter and rainwater collection. A smokeless ceramic stove to reduce fuel and health issues. These were the ideas developed and presented for the 2011 Engineers Without Borders Australia (EWB) Challenge by four teams of first year students from the College of Engineering and Computer Science (CECS) and the Australian National University (ANU) during Australian Engineering Week. Each year the EWB Design Challenge focuses on one of EWB’s community partners and gives first year university students the opportunity to develop concepts and solutions to numerous challenges identified by the community. The focus in 2011 was the small rural community of Devikulam in the state of Tamil Nadu, near the south-east coast of India.
The students had been working on the EWB Challenge as part of the university studies, and these teams represented the top four concepts identified by CECS from 43 teams and were presenting with the opportunity to be selected as the top ANU team. A panel of three judges from the ACT Chapter of EWB had a very difficult decision, but selected Team PhD (People helping Devikulam) for their idea to develop a roof-top rainwater catchment system using tiles manufactured locally from available plant materials. The team will next be examined against the top team from UNSW@ADFA in October with one team selected to present at a national event at the AaeE Conference in Perth in December.
Australian transport Safety Bureau (ATSB)
As part of Australian Engineering Week 2011, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) opened the doors of its Canberra headquarters to guests interested in the role that engineering plays in the ATSB’s work. The ATSB is Australia’s national transport safety investigator. Entirely separate from transport safety regulators and service providers, the ATSB investigates accidents and incidents for the purpose of preventing similar events in the future, rather than looking to assign blame or apportion liability.
Many of the ATSB’s investigators are engineers. Their work takes them from the office to accident sites and to world-leading laboratory facilities. The ATSB investigates around 100 accidents and incidents each year. The circumstances surrounding these accidents vary tremendously, with investigators working in every environment; from city streets to the remote reaches of the outback.
Visitors that took part in Australian Engineering week were given the opportunity to examine first-hand, the ATSB’s Audio Analysis and Engineering laboratories. These facilities are where pieces of wreckage are examined, and where data from flight recorders (the famous ‘black boxes’) is extracted and analysed. The guests were allowed to handle the recorders and saw computer animations of accident events recreated from the retrieved data.
Engineering Games 2011 report
Another successful Engineering Games was held on 5 August 2011. Registrations were up from last year (over 200 teams) and the number of participants was also considerably higher as evidenced by the overflow from the Science Show put on by Questacon in conjunction. The Games consisted of six competitions including a new one (Geodesic Dome) introduced following calls for suggestions from the 2010 participants. The new competition was attended with enthusiasm if not in number of entries. Some improvements were made from last year including better crowd management and test throughput. Feedback addressed in this year's washup meeting on 24/8/2011 will help further improve operations next year. We will be looking at laptop entry of results to speed up final presentation, some improvements will be made to the results forms and database, the notices will be sent out to schools earlier next year and the deadline chosen to avoid school holidays, a launch system will be built for the hovercraft, the spaghetti bridge support structure will be repaired, and a new electronic game will be explored.
The Engineering Games Committee appreciate the tremendous effort put in by Colleen Mays, assisted by Sue Harrison and Vesna Strika. The volunteers on the evening did a great job and it is good to see some returnees. The support from Questacon is also greatly appreciated, as is the support from teachers and parents. We believe the participants had a lot of fun taking part, and in the process got some appreciation of what engineering is about.
EngineersAustralia Forest in the National Arboretum Canberra
On 2 August 2011, the Deputy Chief Minister, Mr Andrew Barr MLA, together with Ms Jennifer Murray (President, Canberra Division) and Mr Rolfe Harley (Past National President) unveiled the “Pin Oak” forest sign at the National Arboretum Canberra (what we fondly refer to as the Engineers Australia Forest).
Engineers Australia was the first non-profit organisation to ‘sponsor’ a forest of trees in the Arboretum, which were ceremonially planted on 19 May 2009 in celebration of the 90th anniversary of our national organisation. The project was unanimously supported by our national governing body, Engineers Australia National Council, who were also in Canberra at that time and actively participated in the event. Both the National President and the Canberra Division President also officiated at the ceremony.
Engineers Australia has a long history with tree planting in the national capital, dating back to 1926, when The Institution of Engineers, Australia was one of a dozen organisations (mainly national in coverage) that sponsored the planting of trees in Canberra Avenue, Griffith, ACT (around what is now known as Manuka Circle). The Institution sponsored some 96 trees, and on a visit to Canberra in August that year about a dozen members, and some wives, planted a token 36 trees in the names of past and present Councillors, of benefactors of the Institution, and of its several Divisions.
The record of this planting is recorded in the Institution’s Annual Report for the year 1926 and is also contained in a framed document which recorded the names of all those involved in the planting as well as those in whose name trees were planted and now holds pride of place in the Canberra Division offices, eliciting many a discussion from both members and visitors.
The date of the unveiling was significant as it happened to be the 85th anniversary of that original tree planting in Manuka Circle.
You can view photos from the Australian Engineering Week Canberra Division Flickr collection here
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