Tag Archives: University of Sheffield

Reasons I became an engineer: #4

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Images from the optical microscope showing the tracks of bacteria interacting with a surfaceThis is the last in a series of posts reflecting on my steps towards becoming an engineer.  At the end of the previous post, I described how I moved to Canada becoming a biomedical engineer in the Medical School at the University of Calgary.  It was a brief period of my career, because shortly after I started, I was encouraged to apply for a lectureship in mechanical engineering at my alma mater which I did successfully.  So, I returned to the University of Sheffield and started my career as an academic engineer.  I continued to work in biomedical engineering, focussing initially on cardiac mechanics [see ‘Tears in the heart’ on July 20th, 2022], then on osseointegrated prostheses [see ‘Turning the screw in dentistry’ on September 9th, 2020] and, more recently, on computational biology [see ‘Hierarchical modelling in engineering and biology’ on March 14th, 2018] and cellular dynamics [see ‘Label-free real-time tracking of individual bacterium’ on January 25th, 2023].  However, the dominant application area of my research has been aerospace engineering informed by, if not also influenced by, my experiences in the Royal Navy, including flying a jet trainer aircraft shortly before leaving.  In the last decade, I have been introduced to nuclear reactor engineering, both fission and fusion, and have used them as vehicles for developing research in digital engineering [see ‘Thought leadership in fusion engineering’ on October 9th, 2019].  This biographical series of posts has described my evolution as an engineer – it was not an ambition I ever had nor did anyone push me towards engineering but I have found that my way of thinking about problems is well-suited to engineering, or perhaps engineering has taught me a way of thinking.

Image: Figure 4 – Tracks (yellow lines) of the sections (purple circles) of four E. coli bacteria experiencing: (a) random diffusion above the surface; (b) rotary attachment; (c) lateral attachment; (d) static attachment. The dynamics of the four bacteria was monitored for approximately 20 s. The length of the scale bars is 5 μm. From Scientific Reports, 12:18146, 2022.

Laboratory classes thirty years on

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Henry Lea Laboratory, The University of Sheffield in the 1960s

I have happy memories of teaching laboratory classes at the University of Sheffield in the mid 1980s and 1990s in the Henry Lea Laboratory.  The laboratory was crammed full of equipment for experiments in mechanics of materials.  We conducted the practical classes on a limited selection of test machines that stood around a set of benches in the centre of the laboratory on which were a series of bench-top experiments for undergraduates.  The outer reaches of the laboratory were packed with test machines of various shapes and sizes that were the domain of the research students and staff.  So, undergraduate students were privileged to conduct their laboratory classes surrounded by research activity – this was one of the advantages of attending a research-intensive university to study engineering.  However, this is not the experience that modern students gain from laboratory classes.  Sheffield, like Liverpool, and many other research-intensive universities has purpose-built teaching laboratories that provide modern spacious facilities for teaching and learning but also segregate undergraduates from the research business of the university.  In the UK, the increase in student numbers, as we moved towards 50% participation in higher education, was probably a prime driver for the design and construction of these facilities.  However, often the growth in student numbers exceeds the planned capacity of the teaching laboratories and the student experience is reduced by being in a group of five or six with only one or two of them being able to get hands-on experience at the same time.  To overcome this problem, I have used practical exercises as homework assignments that can be performed in the kitchen at home by first year students.  These were initially designed for the MOOC on thermodynamics that I developed a few years ago but they work equally well for undergraduate students and allow individuals to gain experience of conducting a simple experiment, recording and processing data, and write a short report about their findings [see post on ‘Blending learning environments‘ on November 14th, 2018 and ‘Slow down time to think [about strain energy]‘ on March 8th, 2017].  I have found that the participation rate is about the same as for traditional laboratory classes but different because students can learn from their mistakes in private and acquire some experimental skills [1].  However, it is a long way from conducting labs for small cohorts in a laboratory where world-class research is in progress.

Reference:

1. Patterson EA, Using everyday examples to engage learners on a massive open online course, IJ Mechanical Engineering Education, doi: 10.1177/0306419018818551, 2018.