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Present Around The World, Bath 15 March 2016: Summary & Comments

Yewande introduced the event and told us that there would be three presenters, each with a chance to win a prize of £100 and a shot at the regional and world events.

 

First up was Ryan who talked about the future of aviation. He began by stating NASA’s wish to produce ‘greener, safer and faster flight’. Since the 1950s aircraft had become twice as efficient but the rate of improvement had slowed in recent years.

 

He suggested that variable geometry wings, longer in flight and shorter on the ground might be a method of making further progress. Improved aerodynamics had the potential to reduce sonic boom, making supersonic flight tolerable over land and allowing the relaxation of existing regulations.

 

People have always complained about aircraft noise but it is amazing how much the noise of individual aircraft has reduced. My first school was situated alongside an airport runway and the take off of a twin-engined Douglas DC-3 would make conversation impossible for five minutes at a time. Now jet-engined mail planes slip in and out at the dead of night with very little complaint.

 

Next Esther described the work she had done in developing and producing a hand-held LCD tester. She compared the 50p unit cost before assembly with perhaps the £1000 needed to replace it in the field. Although it was possible to carry out functional testing there were cosmetic faults that were hard to test for yet that a customer would find unacceptable. The tester was able to step the display through various test patterns designed to show up these  faults.

 

Because the tester was self-contained it was possible to use it within the factory or at a customer or supplier’s premises. Indeed she was able to pass it around the audience during the presentation.

 

During questioning it was revealed that these displays had a rather high failure rate (circa.5%?). Some of this was through poor handling before and during assembly. That suggests that a lot of the problems could be eliminated. Also surprising was the assertion that the human eye was needed to spot these cosmetic faults and that camera-based methods wouldn’t work. I’m quite sure that existing image processing techniques could detect these faults. But technology has to be applied appropriately and not ‘gold-plated’ just because it can be.

 

Finally Sami set out to amaze us with the things that Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics can do and might do in the future. He described how some instances of AI were not immediately obvious, the way that Facebook or Linkedin suggests ‘friends’ or ‘contacts’ or Amazon just ‘knows’ what we might like to buy next!

 

More obvious were the computers that could play ‘Go’, Google’s autonomous cars, live language translation or humanoid robots that appear to hold a conversation.

 

I first studied AI in 1985. At the time it was something that was expected to become ‘big’, once we had worked out how to do it! Yet my perception was that it was a topic that seemed to disappear from the mainstream. Meanwhile instances of it quietly entered our lives. Perhaps there is a parallel with the ‘robot’, the humanoid of science fiction. The public were led to believe that this is the, (unobtainable?), goal, as room thermostats, washing machines and other little ‘automatons’ slipped quietly into their lives. Is making a robot like a human desirable anyway?

 

In conclusion, three interesting talks, each good in their own way but the presentation by Esther was judged to be the best.  

 

 

    

 

  • Thanks James for the report.  It sounds as though all three presentations were in the tradition of high quality that the PATW has established over the years.


    Congratualtions Esther!


  • Thank you Barry.


    We certainly had four confident speakers, (including our 'host'), a characteristic that I wish I had had more of when I was their age!


    Ten minutes is a long time when one has nothing to say, and very short when one is enthused and I wonder what is the best sort of topic. It is a bit like the 'specialist subject' questions on Mastermind, 'The History Of The Roman Empire' versus a well-loved short story, a broad canvas or a fine miniature.


    Someone suggested that it was a good idea to speak on one's project and bring it to the presentation - not easy if it is large or if it needs a connection to something else.


    Perhaps the subject isn't important anyway, it is the core skill of presentation that we want to encourage and develop. The working engineer doesn't always get to choose the project!
  • You are right, James, the subject does not matter.  It is the presentational skill that is being tested.