Developing Engineers 2011–our first full year in blogging!
This year has been the first full year for us here at developingengineers.com, and what a year it’s been! We’ve been posting on a whole range of issues, engineering in the news, exciting new and incredible historic innovations, we’ve reported on science and engineering events, as well as sharing some of our own experiences. So let me take you through our year in blogs…
In January we started off discussing specialisms in engineering, first asking how you discover or decide your own area of expertise, before discussing the value of doing a PhD. Hardly surprising looking back, when higher education was big in the news, still reeling from the decision to triple tuition fees for undergraduate students (which to date has resulted in a 15% drop in UCAS applications, although ‘thankfully’ only around 8% for engineering subjects). We also posted on the upcoming Formula 1 season, which while slightly one-sided has still been one of the most technologically remarkable to date.
Early in the year we also shared a number of our experiences and advice on job interviews, and in particular answering those tricky STAR questions that employers love to fill their application forms with! March saw us highlighting some of the exceptional work done to inspire young people into engineering, in which we commented on International Women’s Day as well as The Big Bang Fair.
Inevitably, we waded in to the debate around nuclear power that started after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and the resulting meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant. Along with the rest of the engineering profession, our writers tried to rationalise the debate by highlighting the inherent safety of modern nuclear plant designs and the exceptional circumstances experienced at Fukushima. Even so, in the aftermath of the disaster a number of prominent countries have decided to abandon nuclear power altogether, which presents yet another challenge in trying to combat global emissions, and led us to try and assess the impact of the Japanese earthquake on the energy industry.
Rounding off the first quarter, we even got an early sighting of the Airbus A400M!
In April we looked at how both historical and state-of-the-art engineering can inspire us, with a look at the SS Great Britain and the Bloodhound Super Sonic Car. Both got follow ups, with a two-part tour of the SS Great Britain and a piece on the phenomenal Bloodhound SSC project – I think it goes without saying that we can’t wait to see the car come together during 2012 ready for it’s 1000mph world land speed record attempt in 2013!
Another issue never far from the fore is that of sustainability, and before Easter we discussed not simply the technological, but the ethical and philosophical aspects of sustainable development. Whilst innovation will allow us to reduce our energy and material requirements, perhaps more important is a cultural shift towards re-using and recycling the resources we have.
Over the summer I’m sure many people enjoyed watching the latest BBC series of The Apprentice, however many engineers took exception to comments a certain Lord Sugar made when ‘firing’ a contestant. Interestingly however, Lord Sugar redeemed himself by hiring an engineer at the end of the competition!
A big event this summer (which we surprisingly covered!) was the quadrennial World Scout Jamboree, which attracted almost 40,000 Scouts from over 140 countries to a site near Kristianstad in Sweden. Having been lucky enough to be asked to act as an ‘external expert’ to design and build a range of bicycle powered activities, I thought I’d share my experiences through a trio of posts covering the design, prototyping and final manufacture of the bike rigs for the Jamboree!
Getting ‘back on track’, we were also lucky enough to experience the IMechE’s annual Formula Student competition held at Silverstone. Attracting over 130 teams from around the world, this year was particularly special as it featured, for the first time, a team from Gaza University who spoke of the added challenges of designing, manufacturing and transporting a working race car, when subjected to such severe restrictions.
During the autumn we covered a number of issues facing engineers, both current and future, as we commented on the case against 6 Italian seismologists for failing to predict the L’Aquila earthquake, as well as discussing how we can communicate our passion for engineering to inspire the next generation.
As a suitable finale to the year was our coverage of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, which is hoped to become established alongside the Nobel Prizes with its £1,000,000 prize for engineering innovation. In an unprecedented show of support, the leaders from all three of the UK’s biggest political parties appeared together to announce the new prize, which will be administered by the Royal Academy for Engineering and supported by a number of prominent engineering companies.
It’s been a busy year for us here at Developing Engineers, but we’re thrilled with the sheer number of visitors we’ve had from across the world. In 2012 you can look forward to more articles covering the vast spectrum of engineering, a revamp of the site making it more accessible, and perhaps even a non-English blog post or two!
Thanks for reading this year, we look forward to seeing you back here in 2012!
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