Kenji's Blog

Catch me if you can....

2010-08-17T10:21:00.006Z

How does it feel to drive at 15 times the motorway speed limit? Well, you can find out now on the BLOODHOUND Driving Experience. Launched at Farnborough Airshow 2010, it's now possible to take to the wheel of a virtual supersonic car. Thanks to IT sponsor Intel, we at the University of Southampton have been able to work with a great team to bring this project to fruition.

Using our experience in flight simulation, aerodynamics and vehicle modelling, we worked with Cursive Simulation to create a model that recreates the full experience from 0 to 1000 to 0 mph - all in 100 seconds.

Amy Williams - our hero!!!

2010-02-20T23:15:00.003Z

We're absolutely over the moon with Amy Williams' amazing Gold Medal in the Winter Olympics Bob Skeleton event. We've been fortunate enough at the University of Southampton to have worked with her, and the rest of the team, in the run-up to the Games. Rachel and James, two graduates from our Ship Science course and studying for Engineering Doctorates, are out in Vancouver supporting Team GB having worked with the Bob Skeleton team for the past four years. Read the full story at @ http://www.soton.ac.uk/promotion/excellence_action_uk_sport.shtml

How many people does it take to break the land speed record?

2010-01-18T11:37:00.006Z

One? Andy Green is the fastest man on earth, and aiming to drive BLOODHOUND SSC faster than 1000mph – 40% faster than the speed of sound. Of course, he needs a crew out in the South African desert, so add another two or three dozen people at least. Also, there aren’t many supersonic cars on the market, so that means building a new one from scratch.

That’s where it really gets difficult. Combining the sophistication of a jet fighter, the finesse of a Formula One car, and the raw power of a rocket, is pushing the limits of 21st century science and engineering. It requires great leadership and great teamwork, and Richard Noble is certainly the man to pull this together. And he has. The engineering team is small, only 17 people, young and old, bringing together immense experience and huge amounts of joie de vivre.

That’s still not enough though. The BLOODHOUND project is reaching a new milestone – building the car. With the engineering team now moved into its new HQ in Bristol, alongside the legendary SS Great Britain, we’ve finalised the concept design and it’s now time to turn computer models into reality. This means more people, and lots of them.

A car is a complicated device. Thousands of components have to work in perfect harmony and be reliable. Every component has to be both designed and built. The BLOODHOUND team has designed the overall car, but the details - each nut, bolt, valve, circuit board, and the all-important software – has to be realised. The idea behind BLOODHOUND is to showcase British engineering, something that the nation needs to be proud of, and so the call went out – help! And help has been pouring in, from over 160 companies no less.

Conor La Grue is the linchpin here, listening to the engineering team’s needs and trying to find companies willing to help and become part of the project. The response has been tremendous, engineers love a challenge, and they don’t get much bigger than this! So the team is steadily growing through our vital product sponsors, and everyone is exhilarated that the build phase is getting underway. Conor will be at the Autosport International Show at NEC Birmingham talking to more firms, so if you think you can help then drop by the BLOODHOUND stand (S30, Hall 19).

So, we’re up to a few hundred people now, but it doesn’t stop there. This is where you come in – you can join the team. That’s right, you can lay claim to the world land speed record.

The BLOODHOUND 1K Club is for fans - anyone who wants to be part of possibly the most exciting project in the UK, or world even. 1K members really do get involved, with special days to meet the team, the car and even see it running in the UK. Not only that, you can ride on the car too! Sign up to our Fin Programme and we’ll graffiti your name onto the tail so you can share the record with us.

That’s a few thousand people now. Not to mention the thousands of schools and colleges who have signed up to the education programme. That’s the real point of the whole thing, doing something amazing with science to inspire youngsters, and with over 3,000 schools signed up we’re getting into the tens of thousands of people now.

So while Andy Green will be the one sitting in the hot seat, he stands on the shoulders of thousands, and as they say, it could be you. so check out www.BLOODHOUNDSSC.com and join the team - we need YOU!

Note - A short Version of this is also available at Wired UK

EP2DC - linking EPrints with research data repositories

2009-12-23T19:23:00.003Z

We're proud to announce the release of EP2DC, a service that connects and EPrints document repository with a remote data repository. What's the point? Well, at Southampton we've been working very hard over the past decade to make research more widely available - spearheading the Open Access movement. One of the products of this is EPrints, one of the world's most popular repository platforms. EP2DC allows you to upload datasets to go alongside your articles - e.g. the raw data used for the graphs in your paper. While this is possible with EPrints already, here we have built a Web Service infrastructure that allows the data to be stored remotely - i.e. in a separate data repository. This provides a scalable, federated SOA architecture that we believe will help users, repository owner and developers realise the dream of open access to data. Have a look at http://www.materialsdatacentre.com/, and more specifically on the EP2DC blog @ http://www.materialsdatacentre.com/ep2dc-blog.html Thanks to JISC for funding us to create this!

Happy Birthday Prof Lilley!

2009-12-15T18:34:00.016Z

Professor Geoffrey Lilley is one of the most accomplished people I have had the pleasure of knowing. He is a legend in aeroacoustics, was instrumental in enabling Concorde to enter service, and even delved into special relativity and astrophysics. Lilley's equation is one of the most important acoustic tools for jet noise research. 11th December 2009 saw friends and colleagues reunited at Southampton to celebrate Prof Lilley's 90th Birthday. Here are some photos from this very special event.

- Group photo
- Prof Lilley enjoying his birthday, and another pic here
- Prof Shon Ffowcs-Williams reminiscing
- Prof Mike Gaster telling another story about Geoff
A 75MB zip file with around 50 photos from the day can be downloaded here.

How to build a birdman....

2009-09-02T19:34:00.006Z

You can see our birdman attempt with T he Gadget Show here if you missed it. Certainly was a lot of fun! Our aircraft design was deliberately conventional as we only had a month to design, test, build and fly two aircraft. We did test a model in the RJ Mitchell wind tunnel, as used by Sir Chris Hoy and the British Cycling Team in their preparations for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. We also did some computational fluid dynamics analysis, hat proved to us that winglets were well worth including. Building the aircraft in our student workshops, luckily devoid of student projects over the summer break, took up a lot of space. The wingspan was over 9m!! Overall it was an amazing experience. Particular thanks go to Jason Bradbury for having the kohanas to fly our creation. he did a great job, and there will always be room in the cockpit for him in our future Birdman attempts! This isn't the only thing we get up to. A really cool project was also our amphibious cycle, which you can see on YouTube. We also get up to more serious research, working with companies such as Airbus, Rolls-Royce, Formula 1 teams, Microsoft, RNLI, Lloyds Register and others. Oh, and if you've not been to uni yet, why not consider coming to Southampton to learn how to design Birdman aircraft and more!!!

Flying high on The Gadget Show...

2009-08-28T21:12:00.004Z

23rd August 2009 was a hude day for us at the University of Southampton. We were tasked a month earlier with designing and building a glider for the International Birdman Competition at Worthing. This crazy event asks grown men and women to jump from a 10m high pier to see how far they can fly - unassisted!!! To see how we did, watch The Gadget Show on Bank Holiday Monday 31st August 2009 on Five. You can get a sneak preview in this interview with presenters Jason and Ortis. You can read a bit more about it in our 'official' press release @ http://www.soton.ac.uk/mediacentre/news/2009/aug/09_122.shtml We're going to try again next year with a group of students. It's just one example of what our Aeronautics & Astronautics students get up to :)

Steaming into the record books....

2009-08-25T20:08:00.002Z

Congratulations to the British Steam Car Challenge team for breaking the oldest land speed record in the world! Fantastic effort, you really are an inspiration to us all, as your car's name aptly suggests. It truly is an amazing site to behold!

Very satisfying as it was originally conceived with the help of our own Southampton engineering students!

And to the future - 1000mph using rocket and fighter jet engine with BLOODHOUND SSC :) Here's to more world records!!!!

I'm a PC - and then some!!!!

2009-07-31T18:53:00.002Z

It's always nice to get a PC upgrade, but this is ridiculous!!!

Actually, we've been waiting to upgrade ths supercomputer at Southampton for sometime. We do so much simulation work, be it F1 cars, aircraft, engines, yachts, sueprconductors, you name it, that we keep needing more and more SPEED!!!

So hopefully these new 8000 processors will help, at least for a few weeks ;)

We've got Linux and Windows on there, I know which I'll be using .

Southampton graduate leads British GP 1-2

2009-06-21T23:27:00.002Z

Well done to Adrian Newey and all of the other Southampton graduates at Red Bull Racing/Technology for an amazing 1-2 at this weekend's British Grand Prix! With Southampton alumni at all levels at RBR it is great to see them doing well. We're also very proud of our people in all of the F1 teams, including a load at Brawn GP. Maybe we should setup our own team - 'Southampton University F1'. That said, it wouldn't be very fair, as we'd probably sweep the board, even more than Brawn GP is at the moment . So if you want to join the top flight of F1 then there's no better place than the University of Southampton, just ask Adrian Newey! See www.SouthamptonF1.com for more details.

Head in the clouds....

2009-06-18T08:39:00.003Z

Wouldn't it be nice if when you had a really tough job to do, that the tool you had available did most of the thinking for you?

That's exactly what a small company called DezineForce aims to do for engineers around the world. If most of us want to design something using computer engineering tools like computational fluid dynamics (CFD) or Finite Element analysis (FEA) then it usually means hours converting CAD to a mesh, then running computations, analysing each result carefully before deciding how to improve it.

Queue automatic design optimisation. Why not let a computer do the hard work? That's what we do here at Southampton, based around technology developin in our Rolls-Royce University Technology Centre and Microsoft Institute for HPC.

Previously this type of technology was only available inside the world's largest organisations, but now DezineForce is making it available to everyone via 'cloud computing'.

Read all about it in the Microsoft Architecture Journal here... If you want to speed up your product design cycle, then why not look at DezineForce!

Windows Super...Super....Super...Computing

2009-05-26T20:39:00.003Z

That's right, say it three times!!! 'Version 3' of Microsoft Windows High Performance Computing Server is out now - well almost... The Community Technical Preview is now available for download here. Read about some of the great new features in Ryan Waite's Blog posting. Ryan is the clever chap in Redmond who pieces together everyone's requests for new features and masterminds each new version. I was dead impressed with Windows HPC Server 2008, and they've already rolled up the next version for Windows HPC Server 2008 R2. Amazing!!! So whether you're new to Windows supercomputing, or raring to go to see what's new, check it out to make your life a whole lot easier :) The Microsoft HPC website is @ http://www.microsoft.com/hpc You can see what I get up to with this at the Microsoft Institute for HPC at Southampton here.

Build your own supersonic car....

2009-05-06T21:41:00.004Z

That's right, you can have a go at building your very own supersonic car. We've just finished an online game that lets you try to design a 1000mph car. Can you do better then the BLOODHOUND SSC team??? So give it a go, and see if you can do better than your friends :) See www.bloodhoundssc.com for more about the project - join the adventure of a lifetime!!!

World's fastest kettle coming to the boil...

2009-04-04T14:05:00.004Z

No really! A fantastic team in the New Forest have been working hard to break the longest standing world land speed record. In 1906 American Fred Marriott reached 127mph in a steam-powered car. Nobody has come close since, but this is the aim of the Hampshire-based Steam Car Challenge Team.

Congratulations to Don Wales and the team for a masssively successful test of their world-record attempt car this week :) We're particularly pleased as the design was concieved with the School of Engineering Science's own Dr Neil Richardson. The preliminary design was created by a group of aeronautics and mechanical engineering students at Southampton, just one example of the exciting projects our students get up to. So best of luck to the Steam Car team to break the record!!! Check out the amazing test run video at the BBC.

Keep space tidy - No litter please!

2009-02-12T18:41:00.002Z

Space junk is a real problem, and something that has been hitting the headlines recently...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7885750.stm

There's an increasing amount of flotsam and jetsam in orbit, and as this gets worse then it can be a real threat to how we operate satellites, and space stations.

It happens to be something that we're working hard on at Southampton. Drs Graham Swinerd and Hugh Lewis are experts in this field, and their simulations are helping to figure out what we can do about it. You can read more about it here @ http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081013112443.htm

If you want to study it in more detail then why not study Space Systems Engineering - the UK's only rocket science degree programme! Find out more about spacecraft with Dr Swinerd's great new book - How Spacecraft Fly, Spaceflight without formulae.

Southampton student wins Melbourne grand prix 2009?

2009-02-11T21:02:00.004Z

Well, maybe. Ex-student Adrian Newey's latest creation hit the track this week. The RB5 is certainly radical, and that's what Adrian is all about.

Ever since his days studying Aeronautics & Astronautics at Southampton University, he has been pushing the boundaries of car aerodynamics.

Many of our students are following in Adrian's footsteps, going to teams including Red Bull Racing, McLaren, Williams, Renault, and others. This includes doing summer and one-year placements in F1 teams. So you don't even have to wait until you finish your degree before you can get into F1.

So if racing is your passion, then there's no better place to learn the ropes at Southampton. For more see http://www.southamptonf1.com/

Science and engineering rocks!!!

2009-01-29T09:39:00.003Z

It's true, science and engineering has built everything we live in, use and rely on. To find out more you can check out the government's great new website - Science: So What? - So Everything.

There are great features and videos about how science is everywhere, it may surprise you. And also how it will save the planet!

So check it out and see how you can be a scientist or engineer who changes the world.

1000mph to the Autosport International Show

2009-01-14T00:12:00.003Z

What a weekend we had at the NEC Birmingham and the Autosport International Show. Thousands of enthusiasts enjoyed the wonderful display of motorsport machinery at this annual winter warmer.

I think we had, by some way, the fastest car there though. The BLOODHOUND SSC team and Lord Drayson (Science minister) were there telling all about our 1000mph land speed record attempt.

We're all pumped up about 2009, when we'll hopefully see the car built and run. More importantly, we're hoping that everyone can come along for the ride, especially as our education programme ramps up and we get BLOODHOUND into the classroom.

So stay tuned here and at http://www.bloodhoundssc.com/ to be part of the adventure!

RAE - the results are out.... And we're still flying high!

2009-01-03T21:38:00.004Z

Well, it's been an anxious wait while the results from the mammoth UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2008 have been decided. We are well pleased with the outcome, again showing that we are in the top 3 engineering universities in the UK, with Cambridge and Imperial. This is a huge achievement, given that the School of Engineering Sciences submitted all of its staff, rather than playing games to try and massage the outcome.

As second in the Aeronautical/Mechanical and Manufacturing 'medal table', we continue to grow our research activities. I'm particularly proud to be part of the new Airbus Noise Technology Centre, helping to make quieter airliners by developing cutting-edge technology, as well as co-Director of the Microsoft Institute for High Performance Computing.

You can find out more about our RAE 2008 results here.

Check out our Research Pages to see what we get up to!

What a Dame!

2009-01-03T21:19:00.003Z

What a New Year for one Wendy Hall, eminent professor in our School of Electronics & Computer Science at Southampton... or Dame Wendy as we now call her!

So congratulations to the University of Southampton's First Lady :)

You can find out more at the University of Southampton and on Wendy's home page.

Another Sweep for British Cycling....

2008-12-15T13:45:00.004Z

It wasn't that surprising, but still very rewarding to see the British Cycling team clean-up at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards 2008. Our congratulations go to Chris Hoy, David Brailsford, and the whole team who have worked so hard over the years to reap their just rewards in Beijing. The University of Southampton feels so proud to be part of this team, particularly the Wolfson Unit who have spent many, many hours with all of the cyclists in our RJ Mitchell wind tunnel. It's so gratifying to know that we have helped in some way towards this huge success story. It just goes to show how engineering can change lives. Roll-on London 2012!

Windows HPC Server cleared for take-off....

2008-12-07T20:42:00.005Z

At the I/ITSEC 2008 simulation show we were pleased to be able to show, for the first-time, a Microsoft ESP flight simulator working together with Windows HPC Server 2008 This demo involved a lot of technology to make it work. We used Microsoft ESP as the flight simulator front-end, talking to Windows HPC Server 2008 via a Windows Communication Foundation Broker Node. This new Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) capability is brand new. On the cluster-side we were running an MPI (Message-Passing Interface) based Computational Fluid Dynamics code on 128 cores. In order to transfer data we used the Microsoft Distributed Cache service 'Velocity'. All of this together allowed us to calculate the air flow over a ship interacting with the rotor downwash of a helicopter attempting to land! You can read all about in in our paper here.

Rocket Science is easy!

2008-11-29T13:59:00.003Z

No really :)

My colleague Dr Graham Swinerd lets out all of the high-tech secrets about rocket science, and without a single equations. He's been beavering away on a great book to explain everything you ever wanted to know about spaceflight.

If you really want to be a rocket scientist, then we have the only course in the UK for this. Why not join the many Southampton graduates who are designing rockets and spaceships at NASA, ESA and other out of this world companies around the globe!

Airbus says Sssssshhhhhhhh....

2008-11-15T18:06:00.006Z

Most people think airplanes are pretty noisy, but the reality is they are becoming massively quieter than in the past. The Airbus A380 is the same as the MUCH smaller Boeing 777. At its first flight you couldn't hear this big beast above the jet noise of the business jet chase plane! Check it out for yourself here... It all comes down to some very advanced engineering. Progress over the last few decades has been far ahead of any other transport sector. At Southampton we've been working to reduce aircraft noise since jets started carrying passengers. Last week saw us formalise our partnership with Airbus on noise research. The brand new Airbus Noise Technology Centre at Southampton will lead the way in aircraft noise reduction. I'm very proud to be part of this endeavour, led by my colleague Prof Xin Zhang.

So in the future maybe the Airbus airliners will be as quiet as the birds. Well, that's what we're aiming for!!!

Nice one Lewis...

2008-11-02T19:27:00.002Z

Phew, almost fell of my seat watching Lewis Hamilton scrape through to win the Formula One Championship at the last corner in Brazil! What a great effort by Lewis, and the tireless team at McLaren. I'm particularly pleased as there are many of our talented graduates there, who we certainly worked hard at Southampton to get them into McLaren and realise their dreams.

So congratulations to all at McLaren, especially all of our Southampton alumni, who have done a great job getting Lewis Hamilton into pole position.

Also, great job to all of our other ex-students who work for all the other teams for making this such an exciting and close season. Here's to 2009 and more close racing, and top-rate engineering!

If you're still at school or even university, then why not talk to us about making into Lewis Hamilton's team, or one of the other great teams that make F1 such a fantastic sport.

BLOODHOUND SSC is out of the gate

2008-10-23T17:49:00.003Z

An amazing morning at the Science Museum today is one I'll never forget. I witnessed the launch of the first 1000mph land speed record car attempt. Not only that, but I'm part of the team! We'll be helping to develop the education programme, which is the driving force for the whole project. We NEED more scientists and engineers, but there just aren't enough youngster doing science and maths through school to university. So this project is aiming to inspire and motivate young people to pursue a high-technology careers that push the boundaries. The need is huge, we have to figure out how to wean ourselves of fossil fuels. Climate change is our biggest threat, and scientists and engineers are the ones to find real solutions now, and in the future. We want everyone to get involved, so go to www.BLOODHOUNDSSC.com and come onboard. It's going to be a hell of a ride!!!

Greenpower aerodynamic champions!

2008-10-23T17:41:00.002Z

After another thrilling Greenpower electric car race final, Sandbach High School's sleek Zebedee car took the chequered flag. It's no accident that it also won the University of Southampton Aerodynamics Innovation Award too. It's thoughtful design and impeccable manufacturing means that it is a low drag vehicle. Low drag equals more efficiency, and that means winning races! So well done to the girls at Sandbach, and their teachers, as they have been at this for a while and finally got their just desserts.

Planes, trains and automobiles... which is greenest?

2008-09-24T11:12:00.017Z

You may have seen our recent BBC South Today feature comparing the environmental performance of trains, planes and automobiles on the Southampton to Edinburgh route. We hope you find it interesting, if you missed it you can read it here, or see the video clip here. Here is the chart that compares total carbon dioxide emissions. for 1, 2 and 4 passengers (click picture to enlarge).

An important point that was not delved into was the issue of non-CO2 emissions from aircraft. This often leads to the application of an 'uplift' factor, where we multiply the CO2 emissions by a fctor of up to 3.7 to take into account other effects. These include Nitrogen Oxides, Methane, contrails and possible increases in cirrus cloud formation. The science related to this is difficult, and there is a good deal of uncertainty about what is the right uplift factor, or whether it is relevant in this context. Why?

Well, carbon dioxide lives in the atmosphere for about 100 years. Other emissions last a few years, months, weeks or even just a few hours, in the case of contrails. The physics of how this actually affects climate is complex, so boiling it down to a single number - usually radiative forcing - is simplistic, but convenient.

So for the analysis we did, we just look at carbon dioxide. CO2 'calculators' online, such as those used for carbon offsetting, add an 'uplift' factor. They claim that what they are telling you is the CO2 you will emit. This is not quite true, it is an 'equivalent CO2' amount. So be careful when you talk about 'carbon footprint' - that means CO2, if it includes non-CO2 effects then make sure that is included for everything you are talking about.

As there is some uncertainty about the climate science, we have chosen to focus just on CO2 here. Clearly, if we apply an uplift factor the numbers change, and this is important.

Another factor is that on this route the train is diesel-powered, not electric. In the UK around 50% of trains are diesel, which is very different to other countries such as France and Japan. Also, electric trains must get their power from somewhere, and again, the UK has a lot of coal, gas and oil-fired power stations. French trains are great, but their electricity is almost all from nuclear power stations - and that's a another environmental discussion altogether.

The message remains, cars emit a lot of CO2, so always share. Use a train if you can, it is still the best environmental option, especially if it is electric not diesel! Flying is an option that should not be excluded, particularly if travelling alone, as its CO2 emissions are not too bad - even when using 'equivalent CO2' with an uplift factor.

If you want to design your own airliner to see how environmentally-friendly it is, visit our website at http://www.futureflight.org/

For more information on aviation and the environment see http://www.greenerbydesign.co.uk/

Wow!

2008-08-19T13:11:00.003Z

Well, since Friday's Team Sprint gold medal, Team GB has swept the board in the cycling at the Olympics!

It makes us feel so proud at the University of Southampton to have helped the team achieve this. Everything from low-drag skinsuits, to optimising each cyclists position in the wind tunnel, has boosted both the performance and confidence of these world-beating athletes.

Of course, all of this comes down to solid engineering, so if you want to learn how to do this, or design Formula One cars or America's Cup yachts, why not study engineering.

Team GB's success may well change society, here's to more success in the run-up to London 2012!

Gold in Beijing - courtesy of RJ Mitchell

2008-08-15T18:07:00.000Z

What's the connection between Team GB and the Spitfire?

RJ Mitchell, well at least his wind tunnel.

Congratulations to Jamie Staff, Jason Kenny and Chris Hoy for becoming Olympic champions in the Team Sprint in Beijing today! They, along with other members of British Cycling, have spent literally hours in the RJ Mitchell wind tunnel in Southampton testing bikes, optimising their aerodynamic performance, and even developing their new low-drag skinsuits.

Read more about it here in our press release, and also in The Independent here.

All this was with help from the Wolfson Unit's world-class engineers. When they're not helping win Olympic medals, they're busy designing America's Cup yachts and lifeboats for the RNLI.

So here's to more Gold medals in Beijing for the cycling team, and the rest of Team GB!

Smallpeice & Supercomputers

2008-07-18T19:06:00.003Z

Phew, it's been a busy week with the 20 participants in this year's Supercomputing in Engineering Smallpeice Trust course!

We had great fun building a supercomputer, designing and flying an airliner on our state-of-the-art flight simulator, and rocking on Guitar Hero and burning rubber in Project Gotham Racing on the Xbox 360. Thanks to all of the great students for getting stuck in, from all over the UK and as far away as Holland!

You can see a movie of what we did a couple of years ago to get a taste of this here. and also read about it from one of the students here.

That's it for another year, but there's always 2009. Make sure you sign-up early though, as we only have 20 places!

Green air travel???

2008-02-17T22:23:00.004Z

Is air travel ever likely to be green? Is it really that bad for the environment? These are questions that I'll be aiming to answer on Wednesday 20th February when I give the Royal Aeronautical Society Solent Branch lecture entitled 'Green air travel: fact or fantasy?'

Come along to find out how aviation is doing its bit for the environment.

Admission is open to all, and is free. Details are here http://www.solent-raes.org.uk/lectures.php

STORM in Space

2008-02-14T18:39:00.002Z

After several delays, the shuttle Atlantis finally blasted off last week.... carrying with it the Southampton Transient Oxygen and Radiation Monitor (STORM) instrument. This little beauty will attach to the outside of the ISS Columbus module to see how the hostile space environment affects various different materials used to construct spacecraft, such as polymers.

It was designed by colleagues in the School of Engineering Sciences, and School of Electronics and Computer Science. Two PhD students did most of the detailed work, and undergraduates also helped with several aspects of the design.

Read more about it in our official press release here. Also, the main NASA web page hasmore about the overall MEDET experimental package here.

If you want to be a rocket scientist, then why not learn from the lecturers and professors who designed this shuttle payload on our Master of Engineering course in Space Systems Engineering.

Goodbye Dolphin

2008-02-04T10:35:00.001Z

After many years of being our figurehead, today we wave goodbye to the Southampton Dolphin....

So hello to the new era, with the new University of Southampton logo that will see us through the next decade and beyond. Let us know what you think about our new University and School of Engineering Sciences look! Find out more here....

Simulators save lives!

2008-01-22T18:11:00.000Z

I think we can all breath a huge sigh of relief that the Boeing 777 that crash landed at Heathrow last week was a 100% survivable incident. This is in no small part due to the superb job done by the British Airways Flight Training team at Cranebank.

We helped the team there revamp their 737 exhibition simulator, and I was particularly impressed by the dedication and skill of all of the staff. Not only the full-cockpit simulators, but also the cabin simulators used to train cabin crew how to evacuate passengers in an emergency.

So while the pilots and cabin crew are absolute heros, we also salute all those in the flight simulation industry for the backroom efforts that really do save lives.

Our own flight simulation work in our teaching and research is aimed at making aviation safer and more efficient, find out how you can be a part of this here by studying Aeronautics.

Southampton Graduates on Pole Position

2008-01-08T20:41:00.000Z

A new year and another Formula One season is just weeks away! This is just to say congratulations to the Race Car Aerodynamics MSc class of 2007, who ALL got jobs in Formula One. Well, a couple of them stayed at Southampton to study PhDs in aerodynamics, still with a race car aero bent.

This time last year they were working together on their group project designing the aerodynamics for a sports car. This year they're competing against each other in the Formula One championship. What a difference a year makes!!!

And that's not to mention the dozens of other alumni from Southampton who have made it to the very top of Formula One, battling across the globe to win those coveted titles. From Adrian Newey at Red Bull Racing (student project pictured here), to the latest employees to join the reverred ranks of the F1 fraternity, we salute you all, and hope that your years at Southampton come in handy beating all of your alumni competitors!

So whether it's McLaren, Ferrari, BMW, Red Bull Racing, Renault, Honda F1, Williams F1, or any of the other, we know that Southampton has helped to win the driver's and constructors titles !!!

Still at school but fancy joining in? check out our Aeronautics & Astronautics, and Mechanical Engineering courses - to qualify for pole position. If you're at another Uni, never mind, you can always try our Race Car Aero MSc course, the only one of its kind in the world!

So good luck to everyone, you're all winners! Why not join the new Southampton Motorsport Alumni group on Facebook. Maybe we'll see you there?

ExxonMobil Teaching Awards!

2007-12-20T08:50:00.000Z

I was honoured to be selected for one of the presitgious Royal Academy of EngineeringExxonMobil Excellence in Teaching Awards 2007. This was to recognise all of the teaching and outreach work that I've been trying to keep you updated on here! The awards ceremony was at the fantastic Clardige's Hotel in London. Unfortunately I didn't meet Gordon Ramsay there, I think he was probably too busy in the kitchen cooking my lunch - and no, I didn't send it back ;)

It was great to see teaching rewarded in this way, as here at Southampton we pride ourselves in the quality of our graduates, as do industry.

You can read the 'official' press release here.

Super...computing...Baby!

2007-11-21T18:49:00.000Z

Supercomputing'07 was a rocking event, at which we were honoured by the Microsoft HPC team after two exciing years of the Microsoft Institute for High Performance Computing @ Southampton. Tony Hey, Corporate Vice-President of External research, and Kyril Faenov, Head of HPC (pictured here in glorious Thai dye!). The presentation was hosted by the inimitable Austin Powers, who brought the house down with his unique style and mojo-tastic compering. The launch of Micosoft HPC Server 2008 Beta 1 marked an exciting milestone in th development of Windows HPC, and you can hear more about it from Kyril here. We're already pushing this new product to the limits, more announcements soon! In the meantime, read more about it on the Microsoft website.

Aviation & Climate Change, the truth is out there....

2007-10-31T15:09:00.000Z

We are very excited to have just published the final version of our review of aviation and climate change research. Supported by the Royal Aeronautical Society's Greener by Design group, the report aims to provide a single source of information on the current science around this highly topical subject.

You can download a copy from the Greener by Design website here.

Welcome to Aeronautics & Astronautics @ Southampton

2007-10-21T16:49:00.000Z

It's that exciting time of year again, when 100 new undergraduates start out on their careers as airplane designers and rocket scientists. New freshers for our Aeronautics & Astronautics and Spacecraft Systems Engineering courses are settling into life at university.

Our induction week was a blast, with the students working in teams to design, build, test and fly gliders. Congratulations to team easyGlide for being overall winners. They had a great flying glider, as well as being technically superb and producing a fantastic poster.

Well done to everyone, who really worked hard to produce some great designs. In the net three or four years these students will develop into tomorrow's engineers, to join our illustrious alumni working across the engineering industry.

HPC for the masses

2007-10-09T07:05:00.001Z

You can read a bit more about Compute Cluster Server 2003 in this article about our Supercomputing in Engineering course on The Register :) http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2007/08/15/hpc_programming_tools/

Windows Compute Cluster battles Climate Change

2007-08-24T09:26:00.000Z

The Microsoft Institute for HPC at Southampton has been working with the GENIE project team to develop new ways for climate scientists to smulate the Earth System. This involves coupling ocean, atmosphere, biological and ice sheet models to figure out what our climate is and will be doing. We've used a basket of Microsoft technologies to make the scientists jobs easier, and you can read all about it here....

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=4000000122

Supercomputing made easy...

2007-07-21T20:11:00.000Z

How many teenagers does it take to build a supercomputer?

Nineteen, well that's how many came to our Smallpeice Trust course 'Supercomputing in Engineering'.

This great group of 17 year olds built a supercomputer with Windows Compute Cluster 2003 in just a day! Not only that, but they designed and test flew some radical environmentally-friendly airliners on our simulator too!

See what they got up to here... (yes, we did play Guitar Hero II on the Xbox 360 a lot!).

For details of this, and other great courses for Year 9-12 youngsters, check out http://www.smallpeicetrust.org.uk/

See what they got up to last year in this movie, courtesy of Microsoft...

Free fun at Boldrewood!

2007-03-08T21:02:00.000Z

This Saturday is going to be full of fun at the Boldrewood Science & Engineering Day. Dozens of interactive, exciting science and engineering hands-on activities will be there. Fly the A380 megaliner, see a laser light show, create your own video games, learn about the human body, there's so much to do!

Find out about Greenpower electric car racing, and see them being built and raced. If you like it you could even create a team at your school.

And it's free :) So why not come along this Saturday (10th March 2007) and bring the whole family!

Find out more at http://www.creatingthefuture.net/sew07/sew07.html For directions go here. We are even running a free park and ride service from the Highfield campus. So why not come along and see fun and exciting science and engineering is!

National Science & Engineering Week!!!

2007-02-26T21:19:00.000Z

We're counting down to our biggest and best Science Week activities ever! That's a lie, it's actually Science and Engineering Week 2007. As my life involves planes, Formula One cars, and computers, this is particularly exciting for me. Not only that, we're very pleased to have the support of the Royal Academy of Engineering, through its fantastic Shape the Future Campaign.

It all kicks off this Saturday 3rd March at West Quay Shopping Centre, smack in the middle of Southampton. So come along and find out more about the exciting events coming to town! Ian Dunne, science educator extraorinaire, will be wowing the crowds from 3-5pm. Have a go trying to fly the Airbus A380 airliner on our flight simulator too :)

And it's all free, so check out more here...

http://www.creatingthefuture.net/sew07/sew07.html

I'll be keeping you updated throughout, so stay posted right here!

If you don't live near Southampton, then find out more on the National Science & Engineering Week website here.

Vroom, vroom....

2007-01-12T20:53:00.000Z

Brrm, Brrm Birmingham. It's cars galore here at Autosport International again!

We're here in the Careers in Motorsport section to answer questions about making it to pole position. Quite a few graduates from Southampton stopped by to say 'Hi', including folks working At Mclaren F1 and Ricardo engineering. Great stuff, and very satisfying seeing the F1 Monza GP mock-up, where most of the cars have been designed, in part, by our alumni!

Three of our Race Car Aerodynamics MSc students are pictured here, taking ime out from revision to see what they'll (hopefully) be working on when they finish their course. Find out more at www.SouthamptonF1.com

Sun and Supercomputers...

2006-11-12T19:15:00.000Z

Another November, another Supercomputing conference (SC'06). This year we're in Tampa, Florida, a nice change from grey and rainy Southampton. It certainly is hot, in the 80s Fahrenheit, but the thunderstorms are pretty torrential too! We were honoured to be part of the huge Microsoft stand again, which is very exciting as Windows Compute Cluster Server is now a real product. Two of our videos were running on the big Plasma screen in between booth talks. The folks opposite on the Pacific Nortwest Labs stand now know more than they ever wanted to about our BAE Systems CFD project, and the Smallpeice Trust 'Computers in Engineering' course we ran in July! This year our demo was pretty cool, pushing the .NET 3 Framework, using Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Communication Foundation, and Globus 2 accessing Windows Compute Cluster. We were performing whole Earth System simulations (atmosphere + ocean) to investigate scenarios of the Gulf Stream switching on and off. Running all of this from inside a web browser, with WPF, was one of the first times anyone had seen such Web 2.0 technology being used in anger - even the Microsoft folks ;) I'll post more about the demo on our MIHPC site (www.mihpc.net) soon! My colleague, Simon Cox, had some fun cruising around Tampa showing how supercomputing affects our everyday lives. Check out the video at www.winhpc.org .

Bill, Brussels and Bright Ideas....

2006-11-09T23:00:00.000Z

Today was an interesting one! A quick trip to Brussels to the Microsoft Executive Briefing Centre for the Microsoft Research EU Innovation Day 2006. These have been running for a few years now, and it is an opportunity for Microsoft to show off all of the funky research they are doing in Europe and around the world! This year we were invited to showcase the work we're doing in the Microsoft Institute for High Performance Computing (www.mihpc.net). There were lots of people rushing around, as not only was Bill Gates coming to give a keynote speech, but so was the EU President, Matti Vanhanen. Their speeches were very interesting, discussing why innovation in Europe is not as fruitful as in other regions, and what can be done to help. The exhibition was fascinating, you can read more about it on the website... http://www.euinnovationday.com/ For piccies of the event, go straight here... http://www.eventattitude.net/innovationday

Greenpower Final nailbiter!

2006-10-15T18:43:00.000Z

On a sunny Sunday it was amazing to see 75 cars on the start line at Goodwood Motor Circuit for the Greenpower Formula 24 National Final. Teams from all around the UK lined up with their electric racing demons, ready for the 6 hour Le Mans style marathon. The racing was close and fierce, ending up as a three horse race between reigning champion Turbo Tortoise, and the challenging Slippery Trug and The Phoenix. The Weald School's Slippery Trug managed to cross the line in first place, ending Furze Platt's impressive double championship wins from 2004-5! I had the pleasure of presenting the new University of Southampton Aerodynamics Innovation Award to Seaford College, for their impressive Phoenix car. The name comes from the fact that it was almost destroyed in a spectacular crash two weeks previously. Hats off to the team for not only making it to the final, but climbing from the back of the grid up to third place. The Seaford College team will be testing Phoenix in our RJ MItchell wind tunnel as part of their prize. They'll be able to see what it is like to be an aerodynamicist, testing in the wind tunnel used by many Formula One teams and the likes of Adrian Newey and Mike Gascoyne. Well done to everyone for a fantastic season and finale. Find out more about Greenpower, including how to take part, at www.greenpower.co.uk As official technical sponsors, the University of Southampton has put together some tips and educational material about race car aerodynamics, check out http://www.soton.ac.uk/ses/outreach/greenpower/index.html

BA Festival of Science - plane crazy!

2006-09-09T16:35:00.000Z

What a week! The fabulous Festival of Science took place in Norwich, at the University of East Anglia. Over 7000 people came, and 1600 of them descended on our Future Flight stand. We were swamped, as young and old were making paper planes, flying our A380 simulator, and designing airliners using our computer system.

If you missed out then you can grab some of the goodies from the Future F light website.

Thanks to everyone who came, we hope you had as much fun as we did!!!

Duxford Airspace opens its doors...

2006-08-29T16:32:00.000Z

Phew, spent a busy day up at Duxford Air Museum near Cambridge, finishing off three of our interactive exhibits. It's part of their £20m+ refurbishment of the main hanger, housing Concorde, a Vulcan bomber, and a host of other fantastic planes! So do get up to Duxford to see not only Europe's biggest air museum, but have a go on our flight simulator, learn how lift is created over a wing, and even design an airliner. The interactives area also gives you great view of all of the aircraft. Check out http://duxford.iwm.org.uk/ Chocks away!!!

Planes aplenty at Farnborough!

2006-07-21T21:02:00.000Z

Wow, what a hectic day! Friday was International Youth Day at Farnborough Airshow. We brought our Aibus A380 flight simulator as part of the launch of the Future Flight 2006 competition. You can read the 'official' press release here... http://www.soton.ac.uk/ses/news/2006/jul/20Jul2006.shtml It was GREAT to have the Future Flight 2005 winners (including Steffan and Gavin above) come to see the Airbus A380 flying its display. Rather nice for us was the fact that the A380 pilot, Peter Chandler, and Red Arrows pilot Martin Higgins were part of the display. Both of these great guys were Southampton Aeronautics & Astronautics graduates. Martin was actually one of my classmates (back in the 1990s!) and always was a real flyboy ;) For more about how they got from University to being the headline flying display at Farnborough 2006 see http://www.soton.ac.uk/ses/news/2006/jul/26Jul2006.shtml So check out www.futureflight.org to win even better prizes for 2006 by designing a futuristic airliner online!!!

Welcome to Engineering at Southampton!

2006-07-09T10:14:00.000Z

Well, this week is going to be mega. We have almost 200 young people coming to stay with us to see what engineering is like at Southampton. I'm involved in our Headstart Design Triathlon - which won the Royal Academy of Engineering Education Innovation Award earlier in the year! Over 40 17 year olds will be designing planes, speedboats and electric race cars - so loads of fun to be had by all. I'm also leading a new course for the Smallpeice Trust on 'Computers in Engineering'. Participants will be building a supercomputer, and then using it to design an airliner which they'll then fly in our big flight simulator. Quite a lot to do in 4 days, so it should be great :) This one is sponsored by Microsoft, as part of our Institute for High Performance Computing. We even have an Xbox 360 Project Gotham 3 Tournament night on Tuesday which we're all looking forward too . We're also running a Smallpeice Trust courses in Marine Engineering and Bioengineering - just some examples of the exciting things you can do at Southampton! So it's going to be a mad week. Stay posted for photos and more :) For details of all of our schools outreach activities see... http://www.soton.ac.uk/ses/outreach/index.shtml

Windows Supercomputing is here!

2006-06-09T11:39:00.000Z

Today sees the dawn of a new era in supercomputing! Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 has gone to manufacturing. We are priveliged to be one of Microsoft's Institute's for High Performance Computing and have been inolved in the launch of Windows CCS 2003. My colleague, Professor Simon Cox, was at the worldwide press launch in London today. We have worked with BAE SYSTEMS and the Microsoft Technology Centre to put together an interesting user scenario. You can see the video of this here. Thanks to Marc Holmes of the Microsoft Technology Centre (Reading) for working with us on this. You can see more about Windows CCS2003 at the Microsoft UK site.

We're the tops!

2006-05-05T21:49:00.001Z

It's one thing to try to make sure that we provide a good experience for our students at Southampton, but another to be acknowledged in national league tables. So when we found out that we had made it to the top of the Guardian University Guide, we were delighted! http://www.soton.ac.uk/ses/news/2006/may/02May2006.shtml Our three main undergraduate courses - Aeronautics & Astronautics, Mechanical Engineering and Ship Science - we number one in the UK. A tribute to not only our staff, but our students for making our jobs easier by being great folks!

Aerospace 2006

2006-04-05T23:42:00.000Z

Wednesday was an early start to make it up to London for the Royal Aeronautical Society's Aerospace 2006 conference. Today was the Sustainability day, and featured speakers from around the world focussing on how we are working together to minimise the impact of aviation globally and locally. We were exhibiting as part of our Future Flight Greener by Design project, trying to show everyone what we've been up to over the last year. The winners are being notified very shortly, and will be receiving fantastic prizes and a VIP tour of the Airbus factory in Filton, Bristol. It was a very fascinating day, and we have some new partners coming onboard Future flight which we'll be announcing soon!

Say cheese...

2006-04-01T20:11:00.000Z

Here are some photos from my big day at the Royal Academy of Engineering! You can read the 'official' press release here ;) Explaining it all to Lord Sainsbury... Thank you, thank you very much... Thanks to all the staff and particularly the students in the School of Engineering Sciences. It was a team effort, and we won!!!!

What a week!?!

2006-03-30T20:09:00.000Z

Well, I thought it was going to be a quiet week as the students have now disappeared for their 5 week Easter break. Well, not a complete break, as all of the 3rd and 4th years are still around working hard on their projects! Today was a big day. Trekked up to London for the Royal Academy of Engineering's Innovation in Engineering Education Symposium. We were selected as a finalist for the first ever RAEng/BNFL Education Innovation Prize. This was for our Headstart and Induction Week activities, in which we ran a Design Triathlon for teams of students to design, build, test, float, fly & race. Lots of fun for students and staff, which is what it's all about :) Lord Sainsbury was quite excited about our project, and it was nice to be able to chat to the Minister for Science who is very enthusastic and supportive of all we're doing at University. There were some great projects as finalists, so I didn't fancy my chances too much. So when they announced the Southampton entry as the winner I was literally gobsmacked! Nice to know that we're doing something right ;) It felt a bit like the Oscars, especially when it came to thanking the Academy - for Engineering though, ot Motion Pictures! But engineering is much more exciting than the movies :) Certainly brightened up my day, and the lovely glass trophy is now proudly on display on my desk! More pictures to come once I get them from the official photographer. I'll just finish my champagne now!!!

Science Day Extravaganza

2006-03-26T20:51:00.000Z

Wow, what a climax to our Science Week 06 at the Uni. Over 2000 people came to Boldrewood to take part in dozens of interactive science and engineering activities. Everything from making slime to flying an Airbus A380 simulator. A laser light show and science magic show thrilled the crowds. Clymping and Crescent Primary School came to compete in our special Greenpower Goblin race. After spending the morning finising their cars, we took to the wet track for the race - defying the persistent rain! Everyone had a go in the cars to find the best drivers. Then the best of three race was run, with Crescent Primary taking the chequered flag to win the event. Phew, after months of planning the whole team was very pleased to see all the smiling faces all day. We do hope everyone had fun, we'll try to make it even bigger and better for next year :)

Science and shopping...

2006-03-12T11:14:00.000Z

Yes, they do go together! Yesterday hordes of shoppers were able to find out more about Science Week 06 at the University of Southampton. Students and staff were on hand to talk to everyone and find out about all of the exciting things happening on campus over the next two weeks. We were lucky enough to have Clymping Primary School from Chichester building a Greenpower Goblin electric race car. The spectacular Compact Pussycat F24 car was there (see below!) and certainly turned some heads. Chris Packham (shown above) was on hand to help with the car building and talk to many shoppers. Thanks to everybody who came to talk to us, and hope to see many of you at the FREE Ocean & Earth Day next weekend, and at the FREE Science Day extravaganza in a fortnight (25/3). See www.creatingthefuture.net for all of the details.

West Quay here we come!

2006-03-10T18:00:00.000Z

It's finally here. After months of planning we're ready to come on down to West Quay on Saturday (11/3). So come and say 'Hi'. We have family entertainers, and I don't just mean the Vice Chancellor, to give you a break from shopping ;) Freebies for the kids and much more. So do come and check us out. We're just in the atrium, between M&S and John Lewis. Chris Packham will be there from 3pm :) If you can't make it then check back Monday for a full report!!! Cheers, Kenji

Science week update...

2006-03-07T22:40:00.000Z

Only a few days to go before our Science Week opening extravaganza at West Quay, in the atrium area (between M&S and John Lewis) . I can now confirm that Chrisk Packham will be on our stand from 3pm-5pm. Come along and see electric race cars being built. Find out about science and technology, and the Ocean & Earth Day (15 March) and Family Science Day (25 March) at the University. Pick up a flyer to win an iPod or digital camera. See our website for more details. So come along to West Quay and join the fun!!! We'll be giving away lots of freebies for the kids, so don't miss out :)

Roaring Merlins over Southampton

2006-03-05T20:03:00.000Z

Today was a very special day... The 70th anniversary of the Spitfire's first flight. Thousands turned out to witness the re-enactment of this first flight, and a flypast of five glorious Spits over Southampton. Designed and built in Southampton, it is arguably the finest fighter ever flown. In recognition of the designer, RJ Mitchell, The University of Southampton is proud to announce that its bursaries for Aeronautics students will be known as the RJ Mitchell Scholarships. These are available to UCAS applicants who obtain 3 A's at A-level, and who obtain a Firm offer with us. See our website for full details. These scholarships are one way in which the future of aviation can be assured through the new breed of aircraft designers trained at Southampton. It could be you!

Southampton students flying high...

2006-02-23T21:58:00.000Z

Today was a big day for the students on the Aeronautics course at Southampton. John Farley, chief test pilot for the Harrier programme, came to fly our third-year's airliner designs on the flight simulator (www.sfsim.com). After a few shakedown flights each team had 30 mins to explain their design and then let the test pilot put it through its paces. Nerve-wracking moments for the students, but thrilling too. Seeing their designs take to the air was great for all involved! After a long day of flying it was hard to differentiate between all of the teams. Hard work by all the students had paid off handsomely, but there was one clear winner. Team E's design stood out as the best flyer, so kudos not only to them, but to everyone for a job well done :)

Action Stations, Action Stations!!!

2006-02-22T19:47:00.000Z

Another interesting project has come to fruition this week. We've been helping out Action Stations, in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, to develop their new INTERACTION exhibit. This is a huge bunch of brand new activities to have fun with! Learn all about how ships, submarines, planes and helicopters. You can race different ships down the 5m long towing tank, wear yourselves out with the huge lift fan (just like the Joint Strike fighter), control a nuclear reactor in a submarine, and many more games to get to grips with. We're just polishing off our Virtual Trafalgar exhibit now, to install next week. Here you can sail an America's Cup yacht alongside HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar to compare their performances. So get on down to Portsmouth and man your Action Stations!!!

Famous Face for West Quay Science Week Extravaganza

2006-02-20T20:44:00.000Z

Breaking news... University of Southampton graduate Chris Packham will be helping out at West Quay on 11st March! Come along to say Hi, take part in our fun activites, and find out more about the Ocean & Earth Day (18 March), and Family Science Day (25 March) events for all the family. See www.creatingthefuture.net for more and win an iPod or Digital Camera! You heard it here first, so stay posted to stay right up to date on the latest exciting happenings around the University.

Science Week at UoS

2006-02-13T12:14:00.000Z

Well, you heard it here first... Science Week in Southampton is going to be bigger and better than ever before! We're very excited and have been planning like mad to make sure that it's going to be fabulously fun for everyone :) More info will be appearing at www.creatingthefuture.net If you just came here from there then hopefully you'll know all about it and can tell your friends! The first event will be on Saturday 11th March at West Quay shopping Centre, in the middle of Southampton! You can find out all about 'Colour' and see some budding young Formula One designers building an electric powered racing car. You may have seen these on Richard Hammond's 5 O'clock show last Friday on ITV. Come along to West Quay to find out what's happening throughout Science Week and beyond. We don't do things by halves, so Science Week at UoS is actually lasting for a fortnight . More details will be revealed here in the coming weeks, including behind-the-scenes action! Cheers for now :)

Farnborough Airshow here we come...

2006-01-24T20:49:00.000Z

Having just recovered from a hectic Autosport Show, my meeting today with the organiser of the International Youth Day for Farnborough International Airshow means we're already starting to plan our the next big event. On Friday 21st July we'll be there with our A380 flight simulator, and hopefully be launching our Future Flight Greener by Design competition for 2006. The judging for the 2005 competition is nearly finished, and the lucky winners will be hearing from us really soon. So stay tuned folks. If you want to see what all the fuss is about then check out www.futureflight.org

RTA with Alonso - almost...

2006-01-15T23:24:00.000Z

Phew, what a busy few days! Now it's all over for another year and ready to pack up and go home. Autosport 2006 was even bigger and better than last year, and we certainly had a lot of fun. Thanks to the folks from Sandbach School for helping out and letting us show off their car. They're strong contenders for the Aerodyanmics Innovation Prize, that's for sure! A mad scrum behind the NEC. I nearly ran over Fernando Alonso's Renault F1 car on the way out. After loading the van at around 8pm I was all ready for the drive home. Past the scrum of vans and car transporters, around the corner and booph, almost into the R25. It was just parked on the side of the road! Anyway, it's been a long but exciting few days, so I'm glad to be heading back to the relative quiet on campus.

Autosport Alumni Fest

2006-01-14T21:34:00.000Z

We've had a busy couple of days at the Autosport International Show. It's been great to have some many Southampton alumni coming to say 'Hi' to us on the stand. Graduates from the 1970s up to this year have been chatting to us about what they've been up to since leaving SO17. Southampton has long been associated with motorsport, from Adrian Newey on £millions per year (graduated 1980, 3rd year project in the wind tunnel photo shown here) to several of our graduates from 2005 who are starting out in Formula One! It was great to see everyone, and any other engineering alumni please get in touch via the website... http://www.soton.ac.uk/EngineeringSciences/Alumni/ More tomorrow on the wrap-up from the show!

And we're off..

2006-01-12T19:45:00.000Z

The show is open and hoards of visitors are gazing in wonder at the spread of glorious automotive hardware on show. The University of Southampton stand is all up and running, with the fantastic students from Sandbach School telling people about their Greenpower cars. We announced our new 'Aerodynamics innovation Award' today, quite a bit of interest was generated. It will go to the Greenpower car with the most interesting and effective aerodynamics of the 2006 season. Don't know what Greenpower is? Check out www.greenpower.co.uk.

Autosport comes to Birmingham

2006-01-12T06:14:00.000Z

Wow, after a long drive and some setting up we're finally here and ready on the starting grid. Autosport International at NEC Birmingham is a truly spectacular occasion. More to come as we wander around the show.

It begins....

2006-01-10T19:02:00.000Z

Well, here is the new blog... Wonder where it will go?