Showing posts with label Research Project. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Research Project. Show all posts
Friday, 3 April 2015
Touch Football and Electron Density.
Have you ever missed out on selection in a sports team you think you deserved? Have you ever wondered how someone could possibly have made the cut? How many times have you thought the whole process was biased, unfair or vague?Bec Beath is a touch football superstar and Systems Engineering student at ANU. This year she's out to create a better system for the selection of wingers on a touch football team. Yep, that's engineering. She's using technical tools like a House of Quality, Functional Block Diagrams & Evaluation Matrices, and she'll analyse the requirements, generate TPMs and examine the whole life-cycle of the system.
On the other end of the spectrum, my friend Alex is a physics nerd. We all know them. Sometimes I wish I was one, just because geeking out about physics things looks super impressive to everyone else. However, reading his project description reminded me why I don't study physics...
"I'll be measuring the electron density in the ionosphere to calibrate radio astronomical measurements against Faraday rotation by sending radio waves of known polarisation from a 1U cubist through the ionosphere to the MWF in Western Australia".
Hopefully you're all as lost as I am.
When I asked for simple terms, he said: "measuring stuff in the atmosphere from space".
I still don't understand, but hey at least he seems interested in it.
Another friend is looking at ways to solve common engineering problems on a phone or tablet. (I'm definitely annoyed he didn't make an app for this before I started first year). Other projects include the efficiencies of a video store, home water systems, keyboards or an online tutoring system...
Nothing is off limits for us and it will be really cool to see what comes out of all these projects!
Love,
Emily
Thursday, 2 April 2015
Choosing a Project
Do a project on anything. Literally anything! Just make sure you apply what you've learnt. Oh and it's worth 40% of your grade. Good luck!
- ANU Lecturer
It may not be exactly what my Systems Engineering Lecturer said, but it's a pretty great summary of how it sounded. My first response went something along the lines of: "OMG how can I possibly choose something when my options are everything in the world!?"
It completely changed the way I looked at everything for a week. I walked around finding all the things that could be improved, processes in my life that were inefficient and technologies that didn't suit their purpose. My friend and I got as far as creating a logical flow diagram describing the process by which my dog Frank could successfully eat his dinner (my other dog always steals it). By the end of the week, I was extremely dissatisfied with the quality of everything in my life, but I had a project idea! (No, it wasn't designing a more efficient dinner process for Frank).
I've worked in a medical practice for 3 years, and for anyone that has experience in the profession, you'll know that the connections between medical providers and services around Australia is a complex web of incompatible processes, competing interests and outdated systems. You could pick just about any process or system used in patient care and it would make an awesome assignment because there's such a need for new streamlined systems. I'm going to be looking at referral methods for GPs to specialists over the next few months and assessing their suitability in Australia.
To be able to work on a project that's relevant to your job or your personal life is really exciting. After I selected my topic, I was really disappointed that I wouldn't then be able to investigate all these other things around me that seemed to be falling apart!
Here's a photo of Frank having his dinner stolen by my other dog, Mini. Just in case someone else would like to do a project on preventing that. Thanks!
Emily
