Transition Zone Training: 2017 Summer School #SSEI17

The Transition Zone Training Programme is holding a Summer School in Loughborough University London from the 3rd to the 6th July in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London.

‘Innovation insights for the digital workforce of tomorrow‘ is the 4-day event organised by the EPSRC CDT in Embedded Intelligence in partnership with the Digital Economy Network and attended by the UK community of practice in Digital Manufacturing, Robotics, Big Data, Cybersecurity and the Internet of Things.

A much-provoking Panel discussion to address the digital skills gap and the role PhD students play in the knowledge economy will kick-start the #SSEI17: ‘Aligning skills to jobs for the digital future of the knowledge society’. Chaired by Dr S Barr, head of The Manufacturer, brings together industrialists and entrepreneurs (the MTC, HSSMI, Block Solutions), postgraduate educators (Loughborough University) and funding bodies (EPRSC). Seminars, workshops and practicals will be facilitated by world-class innovators and practitioners who are bringing to us the latest in Cybersecurity, Robotics, Computational Thinking, Data visualisation, Film making, and fostering of Creative thinking through Serious Games. Attending to the ethos of a Transition Zone activity, there will be time for the honing of effective communication skills focusing on personal brand.

The programme for the event can be viewed here: CDT-EI Summerschool programme 2017 prf3.2

You can follow the event online: on Facebook: CDT-EI, DEN Digital Economy CDT Network; on Twitter: @cdt-ei, @decdtnetwork, @carmentorres

Mathematical modelling of sonicated bubbles

One possible manufacturing method for bone scaffolds used in regenerative medicine involves the acoustic irradiation of a reacting polymer foam to generate a graded porosity. Sonication of foams have been our focus of research for many years now as this technology allows the porosity tailoring of cellular materials.

Sonicated foam (energy received from the left) with a marked gradation in porosity

We have joined forces with Prof Mulholland’s team (Dr Barlow and Dr Bradley) at Strathclyde University and worked on a mathematical model of a non-reacting process in order to develop theoretical confirmation of the influence of the acoustic signal on the polymer foam.

The model describes single bubble growth in a free rising, nonreacting polymer foam irradiated by an acoustic standing wave and incorporates the effects of inertia. Investigations are carried out to explore the influence of inertia on the bubble volume, fluid pressure and the stress tensors of the foam, and to explore the effect of fluid viscosity and acoustic pressure amplitude on the final bubble volume, and the curing time. A key result is that increasing the applied acoustic pressure is shown to result in a reduced steady state bubble volume, indicating that ultrasonic irradiation has the potential to produce tailored porosity profiles in cellular materials such as bioengineering scaffolds and light-weight structures.

Our work has been compiled as a paper recently published in the Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics and can be found here (Open Access).

‘Robots at the Movies’: The portrayal of robots and androids in contemporary films

Automata, robots and androids have been a creation and fascination for humans over centuries.  From Maria (Metropolis, 1927), R2D2 and C3PO (Star Wars, 1977), WALL-E (2008), The Terminators (1984, 1991, 2003) to Transformers (2007), they have been portrayed as our friends, adversaries, alien to almost human, invaders and enslavers or as our saviours and trusted companions. These portrayals in the movies have reflected and perhaps influenced our opinion of them. Join us for an amusing evening reviewing our relationship with these technologies as reflected in their portrayal in the movie industry.

A family-friendly event brought to you by the Centre for Doctoral Training in Embedded Intelligence in support of The UK Robotics Week 

Presented by Alan Seaman, film expert and stand-up comedian

Date: 28th June 2017, 6.00-7.30pm

Venue: Cope Auditorium, Loughborough University

Register here: (free but ticketed) https://robotsatthemovies.eventbrite.co.uk