Digital Economy USRG

#60at60 community day

July 1, 2012
by Graeme Earl

Yesterday was the 60@60 Community Open Day at Southampton. There were lots of projects with DE USRG connections on display and the University was full of visitors. By the time I arrived at the booking desk at 10:45am the tours of the RJ Mitchell Wind Tunnel, the Tony Davies High Voltage Laboratory, and the  Soton Astrodome, the University’s inflatable mobile planetarium, were all booked up until late in the afternoon. I didn’t have long so only got to see a small fraction of the exhibitions that took place all over the campus. A full list is here and we will be telling some more DE USRG 60@60 stories over the coming months.

The Portus Project had a display including a Ground Penetrating Radar processing demo and also the chance to excavate a replica of the Portus Head produced using a laser scanner by members of the Archaeological Computing Research Group and a 3D printer at the Winchester School of Art.

Compare to the original Portus Project head excavated in 2009. There was also a touch screen display showing examples of the data capture, processing and dissemination tools used on the Portus Project.

Next door was the Soldier in Late Medieval England project which includes a range of ongoing digital humanities activities, and close collaboration with ECS. There was also a film playing describing the world’s first human-powered flight. The HAWK project had a display showing a video based on the #PianaHAWK project and a demonstration of the motion capture system employed.

I also visited the Institute for Life Sciences. Firstly there was a Vodafone McLaren Mercedes Formula 1 racing car parked outside with very informed researchers discussing the rolling road wind tunnel. Inside the IFLS there were lots of demonstrations including some relating to the nervous system, and lots of children and adults seeing bees, glowing worms and learning about hospital hygiene.

 

 

Then I went to the Institute for Sound and Vibration Research for a visit to the anechoic chamber and the reverberant chamber. Again really enthusiastic and informed staff talking about aircraft noise reduction.

There were a few other tweets on the day including ones relating to optic fibres research:

And work at Winchester School of Art in Fashion:

And our musical talents:

At Garden Court there were lots of displays including information about the Southampton Science Park and some touch screen displays and games relating to cleaning up space junk. Last visit of the day was to the Biometrics Tunnel for cool work identifying gait for identification. A really good day and a great way to show off #60at60 and the University as a whole.

Categories: Blog. Tags: #60at60 and open day.