The University of Southampton

Published: 19 October 2012
Illustration

The IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology) held the Southampton leg of its annual Great Egg Race in the Mountbatten Building this week. This year's challenge was one of the toughest yet.

Teams of competitors had to work out how to pick up an egg off the floor, transport it across a table and deposit it back on the floor on the other side - without damaging the egg in the process.

Six teams took up the challenge of safely transporting the egg. They teams had two hours and a selection of items to use. Amongst these were an electric motor, elastic bands, balsa wood, a plastic cup, thread, a cotton reel, pins and rubber grommets plus tape and blu-tack.

A surprise team from Southampton Solent University emerged at about 40 minutes in, having got lost on the way to the event, this took the total competing teams up to 7.

Throughout the event the teams were assessed by judges on teamwork, communication, design, creativity and quality of the finished product.

The final eggstraordinary contraptions varied greatly across the teams: some adhering more closely to the original requirements whilst others had more free-ranged thinking.

Each team was asked to demonstrate and eggsplain their design to the judges and other competitors with points being awarded by each of the judges.

Despite the difficulty of the challenge all of the teams were able to submit at least a partly working design that could transport the egg (including the Solent team in just over half the time) even if the designs needed a few helping pushes or tweaks along the way.

Articles that may also interest you

Share this article FacebookTwitterWeibo

Published: 22 October 2012
Illustration

Eight teams from ECS took part in this year's 24-hour global programming challenge run by the IEEE - IEEEXtreme, running in Zepler Computer Lab from 1 am on Saturday to 1 am on Sunday.

IEEEXtreme is a global challenge in which teams of IEEE student members – supported by an IEEE Student Branch, advised and proctored by an IEEE member – compete in a 24-hour time span against each other to solve a set of programming problems.

Competing for the first time ever, the Southampton teams did remarkably well, with Team SebAliDrian (three second-year Computer Science students) coming third in the UK and 115th in the world. Southampton teams Flaming Snowballs, and Emergent Phenomena were fourth and fifth in the UK, with another four Southampton teams in the UK top 20.

IEEE student branch President, Arinze Ekwosimba, commented: "The IEEE SB Committee is proud of the achievement of all our teams and believes it was the right decision to bring this competition to Southampton for the first time ever.

"Having our top three teams in the UK top five is testimony to the quality of our teams and will definitely serve as a boost to encourage other ECS students to step up to the challenge in coming years.

"The committee worked hard to ensure the only thing teams had to lose was sleep as food, water and music were regularly provided to keep teams happy and focused for 24 hours! I am most grateful to the committee and proctors for the dedication, hard work and sacrifice to be on ground for the entire event."

The Southampton teams went into the competition with prior experience of the IEEEXtreme 24-hour programming competition, but despite the long hours they showed remarkable dedication - the leading ECS team - SebAliDrian answered more questions than other team in the UK.

"We are confident this is only the beginning of a tradition of participation in the IEEEXtreme competition and are already looking foward to hosting and winning the IEEEXtreme 7.0!", said Arinze.

Dr Geoff Merrett, Lecturer in Electronics and Computer Science and Counsellor of the IEEE Student Branch, commented: "This is a great result in the first year that Southampton has entered, and a massive well done to all teams for stepping up to the challenge - they did us proud! An event like this really shows the ability and dedication of ECS students (and lecturers, who gave up their weekend to supervise the event), and i'd like to give a big thanks to everyone involved, including our sponsors G Research and Xyratex. In particular, well done to the Student Branch committee which is formed entirely from ECS students; their determination to bring IEEEXtreme to Southampton this year is a testament to their ambition and professionalism."

Articles that may also interest you

Share this article FacebookTwitterWeibo

Published: 25 October 2012
Illustration

The Tony Davies High Voltage Laboratory (TDHVL) has been growing consistently throughout the past decade. Currently there are 19 staff members and 27PhD students. The quality of work and expertise within the TDHVL means that TDHVL has gained prestige amongst the international research community, which led the TDHVL to be present at the heart of many decision and policy making groups in the area of High Voltage engineering. CIGRÉ comprises more than 2 500 experts on Large Electric Systems from all around the world. Their main objectives are to design and deploy the Power System for the future, optimize existing equipment and power systems, respect the environment and facilitate access to information. Much of the ground breaking work produced by CIGRE is adopted by international and British standards. TDHVL understands the importance of being involved with this and other international councils, which is why many of our staff members and PhD students are directly involved with CIGRE Working Groups (WG). Professor George Chen has considerable expertise in High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) insulating materials, an emerging field in transmission networks. He is the UK representative for the CIGRE WG A2/D1.41 (HVDC Transformer Insulation-Oil Conductivity), and a member of CIGRE WG D1.23 (Diagnostics and Accelerated Life Endurance Testing of Polymeric Materials for HVDC Application). Professor Chen also works with other groups such as the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) as an expert member representing the UK in the Technical Committee 112-WG.8 (Evaluation and qualification of electrical insulating materials and systems-Various Material Properties) and a member of the IEEE nano-dielectrics technical committee. Professor Paul Lewin is member of CIGRE Study Committee B1 (Insulated Cables) UK advisory Group, was an invited expert on CIGRE WG D1.33 (High Voltage Testing and Measurement Techniques) and is a UK representative on CIGRE WG D1.48 (Properties of Insulating Materials under very low frequency voltages). The work with CIGRE WG D1.33 has been used to revise the International Standard for high-voltage measurement techniques, IEC 60060-1 and -21.Professor Lewin is also a member of the British Standards Institute PEL42 High Voltage Testing Techniques Committee and the IEEE Condition Monitoring Technical Committee. Professor Steve Swingler is a member of Strategic Advisory Group Meeting for Study Committee (SC) B1 (Insulated Cables) which sets SC policy and considers proposals for new work and Joint Working Group (JWG) (C3/B1/B2) on Environmental Issues of High Voltage Transmission Lines for Rural and Urban Areas. This JWG is addressing issues relating to the processes, procedures and environmental impact assessment needed to obtain permits for transmission lines. In 2006 he was awarded ‘Distinguished Member of CIGRE’ for services to HV cables. Professor Alun Vaughan is also involved with the CIGRE, as a committee secretary for the WG D1.40 (Functional Nanomaterials for the Electrical Power Industry). The aim of this working group is to devise strategies to produce dielectric systems, which enhance current material properties, such as higher breakdown strength for a more efficient energy transfer. Dr. James Pilgrim is the joint UK representative for the CIGRE WG B1.35 (Guide for Rating Calculations), a role shared with Francis Waite of National Grid. The aim of the working group is to create a guide to current rating calculations for the benefit of the high voltage cable community, drawing together different practices from around the world and highlighting the best approach to each problem. TDHVL research staff and postgraduate students are also encouraged to get involved. Alex Holt and Pedro Santo Amaro, working as an RA and a PhD student respectively, on copper sulphide deposition on insulation paper and passivation of insulation paper, are also involved with CIGRE WG A2-40 (Copper sulphide long–term mitigation and risk assessment). Their work is funded by National Grid plc.

Articles that may also interest you

Share this article FacebookTwitterWeibo

Published: 26 October 2012
Illustration

Researchers from Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at the University of Southampton are designing incentives for collection and verification of information to make crowdsourcing more reliable.

Crowdsourcing is a process of outsourcing tasks to the public, rather than to employees or contractors. In recent years, crowdsourcing has provided an unprecedented ability to accomplish tasks that require the involvement of a large number of people, often across wide-spread geographies, expertise, or interests.

The world's largest encyclopaedia, Wikipedia, is an example of a task that can only be achieved through crowd participation. Crowdsourcing is not limited to volunteer efforts. For example, Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) and CrowdFlower are ‘labour on demand’ markets that allow people to get paid for micro-tasks, as simple as labelling an image or translating a piece of text.

Recently, crowdsourcing has demonstrated effectiveness in large-scale, information-gathering tasks, across very wide geographies. For example, the Ushahidi platform allowed volunteers to perform rapid crisis mapping in real-time in the aftermath of disasters such as the Haiti earthquake.

One of the main obstacles in crowdsourcing information gathering is reliability of collected reports. Now Dr Victor Naroditskiy and Professor Nick Jennings from the University of Southampton, together with Masdar Institute’s Professor Iyad Rahwan and Dr Manuel Cebrian, Research Scientist at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), have developed novel methods for solving this problem through crowdsourcing. The work, which is published in the academic journal PLoS ONE, shows how to crowdsource not just gathering, but also verification of information.

Dr Victor Naroditskiy of the Agents, Interaction and Complexity group at the University of Southampton, and lead author of the paper, says: “The success of an information gathering task relies on the ability to identify trustworthy information reports, while false reports are bound to appear either due to honest mistakes or sabotage attempts. This information verification problem is a difficult task, which, just like the information-gathering task, requires the involvement of a large number of people.”

Sites like Wikipedia have existing mechanisms for quality assurance and information verification. However, those mechanisms rely partly on reputation, as more experienced editors can check whether an article conforms to the Wikipedia objectivity criteria, has sufficient citations, etc. In addition, Wikipedia has policies for resolving conflicts between editors in cases of disagreement.

However, in time-critical tasks, there is no established hierarchy of participants, and little basis for judging credibility of volunteers who are recruited on the fly. In this kind of scenario, special incentives are needed to carry out verification. The research presented in the PLOS ONE paper provides such incentives.

Professor Iyad Rahwan of Masdar Institute in Abu Dhabi and a co-author of the paper, explains: “We showed how to combine incentives to recruit participants to verify information. When a participant submits a report, the participant's recruiter becomes responsible for verifying its correctness. Compensations to the recruiter and to the reporting participant for submitting the correct report, as well as penalties for incorrect reports, ensure that the recruiter will perform verification.”

Incentives to recruit participants have previously been proposed by Dr Manuel Cebrian from UCSD, and a co-author of the paper, to win the DARPA Red Balloon Challenge, where teams had to locate 10 weather balloons positioned at random locations throughout the United States. In that scheme, where the person who found the balloons received a pre-determined compensation, for example $1,000, his recruiter received $500 and the recruiter of the recruiter got $250. Dr Manuel Cebrian says: “The results on incentives to encourage verification provide theoretical justification for the incentives used to win the Red Balloon Challenge.”

Articles that may also interest you

Share this article FacebookTwitterWeibo

Published: 31 October 2012
Illustration

The Tony Davies High Voltage Laboratory and the National Oceanography Centre Southampton are further developing their links to tackle a number of interdisciplinary issues in the area of subsea power transmission.

For many years, engineers at the Tony Davies High Voltage Laboratory at Southampton have been involved in research, design and testing work on subsea power cables ranging from small links to GW scale HVDC interconnectors. Southampton is also host to the National Oceanography Centre Southampton, whose scientists possess a huge depth of expertise on the environment beneath our coastal waters. Since the launch of the Southampton Marine & Maritime Institute, the two teams have been further developing their links to tackle a number of interdisciplinary issues in the area of subsea power transmission. This has led to the appointment of three new PhD students, supervised by a cross-disciplinary team.

Tim Hughes gained his first degree in Physics and joined the team in October, where he will be developing numerical models of the thermal environment seen by subsea cable systems. Predicting how this environment will behave and evolve over time is critical to accurately rating power cables, whose current rating is often limited by thermal considerations. Incorrectly rating the cable can either lead to poor asset utilisation, or worse still a premature failure of a multi-million pound asset. Tim’s work is funded through a HubNet studentship. John Emeana spent a number of years working in the offshore industry before deciding to return to university to study for a PhD. John’s work, funded through an iCASE award from National Grid, seeks to gain new knowledge from existing survey techniques to learn more about the evolution of the environment in which the cable operates. A wide variety of data will be used, ranging from core logs through to high resolution seismic data.

Maggie Phuan joined Southampton in 2011 to study for her MSc Energy & Sustainability with Electrical Power Engineering before taking on her PhD studies. Maggie is based at TDHVL and will be developing advanced thermal and statistical models applicable to wind farm cable systems. The inherent variability of wind generation means that conventional design rules using existing thermal models can lead to a very conservative system. New modelling techniques are essential in driving down the cost of connecting offshore renewable energy projects to the grid for the benefit of consumers.

Tim, John and Maggie join a growing cohort of Southampton students working on high voltage cable systems. The group have a long history of working with industry – if you would you like to know more about how you can benefit from our expertise, please contact Prof Paul Lewin.

Articles that may also interest you

Share this article FacebookTwitterWeibo

Published: 8 November 2012
Illustration

‘Energy avatars’ in our homes that could advise us on how best to use our energy, and even prompt us on changing appliances to gain better cost savings, are part of the future of energy use described by Professor Nick Jennings in a new video on the BBC website.

Professor Nick Jennings, Head of the Agents, Interaction and Complexity research group in Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, and one of the world’s leading experts on agent technology, describes how his research team are devising software which enables people to cut their energy use according to different criteria which can be displayed on devices in the home.

In the video Professor Jennings demonstrates how smart information provided by agents can provide live displays of energy use, which his research team has also characterized according to equivalent use by cars or individual air passengers, for example. ‘This helps us keep track and share information which then encourages people to minimize the amount of energy that they use,’ he says. The key is to enable people to cut their energy use without spending too much time working out how to do it.

Professor Jennings believes that systems like this will be essential as we confront the depletion of non-renewable energy sources and the introduction of greener but more expensive alternatives such as wind and wave power.

The introduction of the ‘Smart Grid’ network will be an essential element in more efficient energy use, enabling utilities and the public to monitor and remotely adjust the millions of devices that use electricity. In-home displays of energy use will be essential to facilitate the efficient working of the Smart Grid, and Professor Jennings and his team are currently working on software that will give consumers more understanding of their energy use – even from individual appliances – and therefore greater control over cost and carbon emissions.

The software also learns the energy profile of the house and will monitor this and suggest ways of optimizing usage to fit pre-set parameters. "Interacting with you, it might say, for example, if your washing machine is very inefficient, if you bought a new one within a certain period of time you would have got that money back," says Professor Jennings.

"People are not interested in spending lots of time investigating their energy usage, even though it is such a big bill, so it makes sense to let machines automate some of the process,” he adds.

For further information on this research contact Professor Nick Jennings.

Articles that may also interest you

Share this article FacebookTwitterWeibo

Published: 8 November 2012

Silicon Valley comes to Southampton this weekend when budding entrepreneurs are invited to take part in a national competition to learn how to build a successful start-up business.

From Friday 9 to Sunday 11 November, the University of Southampton will be hosting a Silicon Valley comes to UK 2012 StartUp Weekend. It is a 56-hour, non-stop national competition where teams with individuals holding different skill sets compete to build a successful start-up business. Over the course of the weekend, participants of all ages and backgrounds will work together to share ideas, form teams, build products and launch start-ups.

The teams will be free to work on any start-up they want but they have to use Open Data and will have access to UK government data sets from data.gov.uk. Participants will use this data to produce high-impact websites and applications, for platforms such as Facebook and Android, to unlock the power of public data.

Beginning with open mic pitches on Friday, attendees are encouraged to bring their best ideas and inspire others to join their team. Over Saturday and Sunday teams design and develop business plans, while constantly refining their start-up ideas. On Sunday evening teams demo their prototypes, listen to judges’ feedback and win prizes. The judges will also choose a winner to attend an exclusive awards ceremony in London and the chance to compete in the Global Startup Battle.

The winner of last year’s national event was Alejandro Saucedo, an Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) student from the University of Southampton, and he is organising this year’s event with his fellow students Maraim Masoud from ECS and Petar Trifonov from Management. Alejandro says: “It was truly a life-changing experience, that amazing opportunity taught me not to fear failure and to take risks. We want another student to have this amazing experience.”

It costs £40 to register (£15 for students) and interested participants can register at www.southampton.startupweekend.org

Articles that may also interest you

Share this article FacebookTwitterWeibo

Published: 8 November 2012
Illustration

Leto, an innovative company co-founded by ECS alumnus Alex Berezovsky, is the main sponsor for the Southampton Startup Weekend, one of a number of events taking place simultaneously across the globe this weekend (9-11 November), to celebrate innovation and enterprise in the tech community.

The Startup Weekend has spread virally across the world into almost every tech community. People of different backgrounds (developers, designers, marketers and many others) come together for an intensive 56 hours. During this time the aim is to develop startups (web or/and mobile applications) that aim to “rewrite the rules of the new economy” using open data provided by Government.

Leto is the main sponsor for the Southampton event. The London-based technological innovation company works closely with startups by offering them lean software development, while also offering innovation consultancy for larger companies that wish to expand on their services and products.

Leto was co-founded by ECS Computer Science alumnus, Alex Berezovsky - now CEO of the company which has already employed eight Southampton alumni as graduates or interns.

On the first day of the Startup Weekend (Friday night) people have an opportunity to meet and network; afterwards, those with bright ideas in mind start pitching to try and inspire others, and the teams form around the winning ideas.

Technically, there is only one day and two nights to work on the product (including prototype development and writing business plan), as Sunday morning is spent wrapping things up. Final presentations and the winner announcement are scheduled for Sunday afternoon.

Southampton Startup will be judged by Don Spalinger, Director of Research and Innovation Services at the University, Professor Simon Cox, Associate Dean for Enterprise in the Faculty of Engineering and the Environment, and Penny Smout - CEO of Hawk Conservancy Trust, who has more than 15 years’ experience working with startups in the US and UK.

Southampton Startup Weekend will be a great test of ECS students’ techie stamina and their skills and enterprise, but it’s an even greater opportunity to experience the entire product cycle - from its early draft idea stage to actual product launch.

Throughout the event, contestants have an opportunity to get help and one-to-one advice from mentors, so they can build on their personal and team strengths. Prizes for the national competition will be awarded by David Cameron in London, and the top startups will be invited to the awards ceremony in London, not to mention a fully paid trip to Silicon Valley in California.

Southampton is one of five UK destinations with similar events being held in London, Cambridge, Manchester, Sheffield, as well as in many cities around the world.

You can follow progress of the Southampton event at: http://southampton.startupweekend.org/

Our picture (above right) includes Alex Berezovsky (third from the left) and other members of the team including ECS alumni (from left to right) Joe Conway, Martin Warne, Trinity Gorman and on the right Sukh Plaha. Second from the right is Oleg Gerasimenko, co-founder of Leto.

Articles that may also interest you

Share this article FacebookTwitterWeibo

Published: 9 November 2012
Illustration

Driving 10,000 miles across Europe and Asia to deliver ambulances to Mongolia and taking part in the Mont Blanc Marathon were just two of the activities that our students were able to undertake this summer as a result of support from The Head of School Fund for ECS.

The Fund enables students in Electronics and Computer Science (ECS ) at the University of Southampton to undertake activities which enhance their personal development – these might be voluntary service, charitable or educational, or any initiative of value to the broader community, for which additional funding is required to achieve success.

The Fund is provided through the generosity of ECS alumni, in response to the annual telephone campaign and through other personal donations. In 2012, as a result of grants made from the Fund, ECS students were able to deliver two ambulances to the people of Mongolia, cycle from London to Budapest, take part in the Mont Blanc Marathon, undertake community projects in Fiji and Manila, attend a leading academic conference in Germany, and support University student performances at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Reporting on their experiences our students commented:

‘Our team of four students set ourselves a challenge to cycle from London to Budapest after Graduation. Our motivations were cultural exploration, physical training and charitable contribution – we met or exceeded all our targets – including our fundraising which resulted in donations totalling £1700 to Save the Children and the Southampton Hospital Charity. A massive thank you to everyone who has sponsored us both in the run up and during our adventure!’ http://www.budapedal.wordpress.com

Alex Coleman Cole volunteered to work in Fiji, teaching English in a village school, and helping construct community projects such as irrigation and recycling. He writes: ‘This trip has given me a beter idea of my position and how lucky I am to be here. I have made many new friends. I have a second family to go back to over there and have learned many useful new skills.’

ECS students delivered two ambulances to Mongolia, driving 10,000 miles across Europe and Asia, as part of the Mongolia Challenge Rally organized by Go Help (a charity established some years ago by a team including ECS graduate Stephen Edwards). Useful patient transport is in incredibly short supply in Mongolia and the ambulances, which were also stocked with large amounts of medical equipment from the team’s fundraising activities, are now being used by the health authority in Ulaanbaatar. http://www.sixdegreesofprocrastination.com/

James Prance and Craig Aylett attended the 2012 Edinburgh Festival Fringe with the University Theatre Society and Showstoppers Group. Both James and Craig are members of StageSoc which helps provide lighting, sound and backstage support. Craig writes: ‘The Fringe is unlike anything else, with people coming from all around the world – it is something I will never forget.’ Tom Smith attended Games Developers Conference Europe as a volunteer. The event is held in Cologne each year and is a major gathering of the games industry. Tom writes: ‘It was very useful to be able to attend the event: I’m in touch with many of the volunteers I met there and intend to apply to volunteer again next year. I also made contact with several prominent games development students and learned a lot from attending the talks.’

Manol Dimitrov (pictured) took part in and completed the Mont Blanc Marathon - one of the toughest footraces in Europe, also raising money for Cancer Research UK. ‘A challenge like this is a major contribution to building character,’ he said, ‘and presents a rare opportunity to learn about yourself as an individual both from a physical and mental perspective.’

Professor Neil White, Head of ECS, comments: ‘We are grateful to ECS alumni for enabling our students to pursue these challenges. In their grant applications, our students stressed that financial support of this kind was fundamental to their ability to undertake these ambitious and often life-changing activities.’

To find out how you can support ECS students, please visit http://www.southampton.ac.uk/supportus or email annualgiving@southampton.ac.uk

Articles that may also interest you

Share this article FacebookTwitterWeibo

Published: 9 November 2012
Illustration

The University of Southampton’s Solar Electric Boat Race Team is celebrating a successful year competing in the Solar Splash World Championships.

Team Tarka, a team of engineers from Electronics and Computer Science (ECS), came fifth overall in the 2012 Collegiate World Championships, in Cedar Falls, USA.

The five-day event is held annually in the USA and pitches intercollegiate teams against each other in a challenge to design and build a vessel that runs on solar and electric power. Their creations are put to the test during five on-the-water competitive trials.

It was the third time Team Tarka has entered the event and they were delighted to take a silver medal in the sprint event. They also won the top award for their outstanding electrical system design and received special recognition as a team for their perseverance.

The team were the first-ever UK entrant in 2009 and since then they have been in the top 10 three times.

Team Tarka Director Dr Peter Wilson said: “It was a super team effort. The award for outstanding electrical system design demonstrates the excellence of the work done by our electronics students and postgraduates.

“This is an excellent way for engineering students to learn new skills and how to deliver excellence under difficult conditions.”

The project involves staff and students from across ECS and is pivotal to their research into the development of renewable energy systems. They were also supported by Roberts’ Fund money to help develop postgraduate students’ enterprise skills.

Articles that may also interest you

Share this article FacebookTwitterWeibo

Pages