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Welcome to Week 3

Welcome to our third and final week of Engineering the Future. Although this is the last week of the course, we’ll be asking you to get out your ‘crystal ball’ …

Welcome to Week 2

Welcome to Week 2 – we’re going to be thinking about several ways that engineers interact with or influence the environment. Over to you Share your initial ideas about: Where …

Welcome to the course

Welcome to our course on ‘Engineering the Future – Creating the Amazing! Over the next three weeks we will be exploring the concepts of sensors, signals and systems, and in …

How do decibels (dBs) work?

In How Environmental Noise is Measured we discussed how noise is largely characterised by measuring the Sound Pressure Level (SPL) and reporting this in decibels (dB). Using decibels as our …

How Does a Pregnancy Test Work?

One of the most commonly used medical diagnostics tests is the pregnancy test. Despite looking quite simple, the pregnancy test is actually extensively engineered. Everything from the outer plastic casing …

Biomarkers in clinical samples

The word ‘Biomarkers’ is a combination of ‘biological’ and ‘markers’ and refers to the various indicators that we can use to detect the processes happening inside a person. These processes …

Sensors used in medicine now

Medicine is the science concerned with the study, prevention, diagnosis and management of disease. As the popular saying goes: ‘what can be measured can be managed’. We’re expanding that saying …

Sound in VR/AR

The activities this week are all designed to help us consider the key role that future technology such as robots and virtual reality will play in all our lives. We’ve …

How your ear changes sound

The diagram below shows a basic drawing of the ear. Image Copyright: Duncan Williams 2013 The ear is basically split into three sections; the outer, middle and inner ear. The …

VR for diagnostic rehabilitation

For a number of years the technology that allows us to immerse ourselves in artificial environments has been getting better and better. A key requirement for better immersion is better …

New initiatives for dealing with hazards

Space is an extreme environment. Robots, rovers and probes face a whole range of hazards during space missions: from extreme temperatures, to cosmic radiation, to corrosion caused by gases in …

Missions in space and hazards

Since 1950, there have been over 320 human-crewed missions into space. There have also been on average 100 launches into and beyond the Earth’s orbit each year. These are mostly …