Hi everyone,

I went to my second university open day on Saturday to Nottingham. I say second, but my first was also to Nottingham in the spring. I missed the electronics talk because I was being collected to go to Scotland, so on Saturday, I grasped th oppertunity to go and look at the EE deparment.

Wow. Just walking into their workshops made my jaw drop. There were various projects in various states of completeness, some labelled with "Don't touch" and others with massive heatsinks, all surrounded by power supplies and a few oscilloscope here and there. In the corner, they had a bunch of transformers, which I think were to simulate voltages on the National Grid for people doing the Electrical part of the degree.

Then we all took the (very cramped) lift up six floors to have the second talk. The building where Electrical and Electronic Engineering is, is by far the tallest, with about 15 floors. Fortunately, we were told that we rarely have to go above six floors. Saying that, a building like that would make a great place to have a radio club...

Back on topic! The next talk took us to the labs, where there were instruments galore! I'm lucky I didn't start salivating when I glanced around at each work station, with its own computer, couple of hp oscilloscope, and cabinets with what looked like logic analysers and network analysers. We were told that they encourage final year projects to have real-world uses. Rather than just make a robot which moves around for no reason, projects have to have relevence in the real world. The first example was a means of monitoring health of miners for a south African company. A little sensor is placed under the miner's helment and is used to monitor things like sweat, core temperature, etc. Apparently they are also starting to market it as a means of monitoring baby's health, because it is so light and unobtrusive. They recently got a licence to sell it in the US!

Then another medical based project involved measuring the blood flow in a hand. It was like an x-ray head, which you positioned your hand under, and with a click of a button, you had a map of blood flow in your hand in about a second. Just incredible.

We then went to solder a little electronic die, which took me the best part of 30 seconds! But do you know what, I'm really proud of it. It's the first thing I've made in a proper place of engineering and although it's simple and I could knock one up myself, I'm still really proud of it. I know it seems silly.

But what a cool day! Just visiting the place makes me want to study electronics even more!!! Oh rah - let's do some electronics!!!!

I know I want to study electronics, I can't wait to spend four years of my life doing nothing but. Let's just hope I can make it there.

Sparky.

P.S. I'm so pumped right now, it's unbelieveable!

Here's the building, you can just see the other buildings around it, nothing is taller than those other buildings, so you can see why it might be good for a radio club!

 

Is that where the Sheriff lives?

 

I just got that! ;-)

The Sheriff was a badass, so he must have been an engineer!

I also think it is no co-incidence that the cloud to the left of the building looks like a giant brain.

 

I seriously have this new motivation to do more electronics!

I really envy those doing electronics right now.

 

Robin Hood beat him so Robin must have been a technician. I looked round Nottingham University and really liked it. It was pretty much a coin toss between Birmingham and there.

 

I really liked the campus.

I found it funny how the arts and humanities section is very park-like, with big open, green spaces, with nice buildings and lots of trees.

Then you get to the sciences and engineering and everything is functional and made from concrete.

 

May I ask why you chose Birmingham?

 

It came up heads
Actually it was more to do with the city than the course or the campus, Birmingham seemed to have a more active and varied nightlife (although I ended up a couple of times on a coach trip to Nottingham Rock City).

 

Fair enough.

Nightlife doesn't bother me too much (at the moment!).

So long as I can play my bagpipes...

But that tower would be epic with a few antennas on the top.

 

And lightning? Sounds like a Frankenstein complex.

 

I understand your fever, electronics is one of the biggest growing fields, and had a building and a half at Purdue, and they're starting a construction of a brand new one

Unfortunately, I'm an first year engineer, meaning little/no work in the EE labs and such, just the mundane crap everyone has to go through

I'm curious, what's the reputation of Purdue over there in England?

 

If you like buildings with antennas on top (and who doesn't), we've got a good one here.

 

Sparky49,to celebrate it,show your photo

 

Our purdue watertower has antennas on it

 

That would be so cool!

You wanna picture?

Right now I've got some old video cards which I'm going to remove the logic ics from. I'm guessing they are video cards because they both have a ramdac.

 

If you like buildings with antennas on top (and who doesn't), we've got a good one here.

Cool but I like the Harley better. In some town in NC where my inlaws live the whole town bought like 100 bear statues. Then painted them different ways as to who sponsored them or bought it. It was actually really cool to drive around this lil coastal NC town with colored and tie died bears everywhere. I think it was done for the towns 200th aniversery or something.