Visit to LaTrobe University's Engineering and Technology Facility 30/11/22
We were met by the Campus Director, Dr. Julie Rudner, who gave us a brief insight into the work of the Engineering area.
The Professors from the various disciplines then explained their roles and the problems they face in attracting enough students to fill their courses. They currently have around 40 in Degree, Masters, and PHD study, but their world class facility could easily handle twice this number.
They spoke of the difficulty of attracting women to their courses, and the ongoing belief among school leavers that Engineering is “too hard” and “I’m not good enough in mathematics” as well as the lack of knowledge and perhaps proficiency in Careers advisors.
The answer is that the student needs to be a problem solver with a keen mind who will be taught the necessary mathematics to particularly suit the area of Engineering that they pursue. Engineering is now not just bridge building or machinery.
We were shown the Plastics and Polymers laboratory where plastic from all facets of industry waste is being transformed into building material, fibres to create artificial skin for medical purposes, extremely fine mesh for filtering of smoke and gases, to name a few. These are all being undertaken as research projects by Masters and PHD students with the hope of industry taking them up.
The Concrete Lab is creating concrete (perhaps the world’s paramount building material) without using cement, a known high carbon emitter. Using waste from mining and beach sand, they hope to show that cement usage can be reduced by 30%.
The Information Technology area encompasses the Internet of Things and computers in industry. The example given is that chickens must be a certain weight within a small range before processing. Scanners can measure the size of an individual in a flock and deduce whether they have reached their optimum, and report back to the computer system.
I must confess that by this stage, information overload set in, and I was feeling very inadequate, not to mention ancient.
A most interesting and informative morning, thoroughly enjoyable.
- Bulletin roving reporter Chris Purton
