A walk into the future
A wind tunnel and wave generator used to study offshore wind turbines and their support structures.
Modern technologies have made the world a smaller place. It used to take our grandparents weeks, if not months, to get to Australia – a journey we can now complete in a day. News from afar that might never have reached our ears, now arrives in minutes. Letters that took weeks to be delivered have been replaced by e-mails that travel huge distances in seconds.
We can now not only talk to but even see our friends and relatives in other countries, in real time, though the internet.
These developments are surely not about to stop; so what does the future hold in store? What new technologies are engineers developing?
An insight into the answer to these questions can be found at the projects exhibition of the University’s Faculty of Engineering, which is open on Friday from 5 to 8 p.m. and on Saturday between9 a.m. and noon.
The exhibition is the culimination of a year-long project that students from the faculty embark upon as part of their curriculum to research, develop and engineer technologies that will shape our future.
Just as cars and aeroplanes are part of our modern lives, the future belongs to unmanned ground vehicles and planes. Unmanned drones have been adopted by the military years ago, while the first prototype ground vehicles, such as Google’s Driverless Car, are currently being tested.
A fundamental hurdle of such technologies is the precise localisation of the vehicles. The Engineering faculty is running several projects to address this issue by using sensors to identify the vehicle’s position and intelligent algorithms to fuse these sensors’ readings into a more accurate position.
Every home owner’s dream is to have fully automated cleaning robots. Although companies such as Irobot already provide the Roomba and Scooba vacuuming and floor-washing robots, they are still far from replacing humans.
Researchers at the faculty have developed small autonomous wheeled robots capable of operating in teams to perform specific tasks, such as surveillance.
Other camera-based robots have been developed to identify and follow road markings, paving the way for intelligent autonomous ground vehicles. Another vision-based robotic arm system developed is capable of replicating the movement of a human arm in real time.
Modern medicine has made huge strides forward though the achievements of engineering research and technologies. The faculty has also embarked on such research with projects on various important aspects such as the rapid manufacturing of replacement parts of the human body, including titanium hips and studies on novel materials for use in dentistry.
Robotics is now also finding its way into medical research as shown in a study on robotic manipulators aimed at helping in the rehabilitation of stroke patients.
With natural oil reserves decreasing and prices rising, research on alternative sources and efficient energy use are indispensable.
A number of projects address this issue with research on both wind and solar power generation that take into consideration Malta’s potential, such as long summer months, as well as its limitations, such as the limited land available.
The future is unwritten, so which of these achievements will most affect our future is subject to debate; but engineering research and innovation will surely be at the heart of the technologies that will shape it.
Anyone wishing to contribute towards shaping this future should attend the information seminar on courses being offered in Engineering at the University on Friday at 5 p.m. at the Engineering Lecture Theatre at the Msida campus.
Dr Scerri is a lecturer at the University’s Faculty of Engineering.
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Pule' Carmel
Jul 1st 2012, 11:30
The Public and all Schools should attend the Enginering Exhibition. Malta as an Independent nation must now invest in those professions which "Export in exchange for some foreign income"
Economics demand a division of revenue between Defence, Social Structure, and Revenue generation. In my days too many eductors based their education on the social, cultural areas and we could only do this because the revenue "GIVEN" to us by the British Military Organisations permitted us to live well without andy " Productive Profession" and " Dawk to li-SKOLA serviced the local community"
Now it has all changed. I still think that Malta still does not produce the higher management Personnel for if it did we would not have sold or closed up or run at a loss establishments as
SeaMalta
AirMalta
Dockyard
Banks
Freeport
Marinas
Bus Transport system
We bring experts from abroad to plan out roads and run Air Malta and others as Banks etc.
In my opinion, our politicians are still below standards in running Domestic Politics not as bad as 50 years ago when the local politicians were of " Ghamili Bozza fit triq, jew tini xi Television, jew ikrili post tal Gvern, jew dahhalni watchman, halli nkun nist norqod bil-lejl u naghame job iehor ma tul il gurnata!!"
The Maltese workforce needs a new mentality in its education and half of those who lead Maltese education must retire or change their mentality . Our students must also change thier mentality and start taking up subjects which will train them for real life.
I have already wrote about what Bill Gates said to Univerisy students and there is not harm in repeating it so that the mentality of Educators and Students and Parents will learn what I really meant when In System of Knowledge 20 years ago I told all students that they could all come to University but all they have to do , think out and make a project of their own and to show me thier own calibre in any manner they chose and then only answers I got from 18 year old Maltese students and thier parents were
" What do you expect me to do?" from students.
" What do you expect of them?" from parents
" Why change the system?" from teachers.
This is Bill Gates message to students.
Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about
eleven (11) things they did not and will not learn in school.
He talks about how “feel-good, politically correct” teachings
created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and
how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.
Rule 1 : Life is not fair - get used to it!
Rule 2 : The world doesn't care about your self-esteem.
The world will expect you to accomplish something
…BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school.
You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss
Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity.
Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping:
… they called it opportunity.
Rule 6 : If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault,
so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
Rule 7 : Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring
as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills,
cleaning your clothes and listening to you
talk about how cool you thought you were.
So before you save the rain forest
from the parasites of your parent's generation,
try delousing the closet in your own room.
Rule 8 : Your school may have done away with winners and losers,
but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades
and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer.
This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 9 : Life is not divided into semesters.
You don't get summers off and very few employers
are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF.
Do that on your own time.
Rule 10 : Television is NOT real life.
In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11 : Be nice to nerds…
Chances are you'll end up working for one.
If you can read this... Thank a Teacher.
If you can read this in English... Thank your grandparents.
If you can read Maltese thank you Grand grand grand parents.
And for life and everything else you have... Thank God !!
I added the last but one line for Maltese students to realise what they ever did by themselves.
Malta needs to change its mentality on the reason why we educate ourselves.
Malta needs to review the manner in which it choses our leaders, The Labour Party must revies its philosophy that it just cannot make a " woring class worker into a top Manager to run the Dockyard in a couple of weeks" while the Nationalist Party must revies its philosophies that by relying on the loan of Paper or Electronic Money from Brussels which will lose its value in twenty years time and thus robbing and stealing all the people savings is no longer a system to run our beloved Malta.
The workforce must change from relying on building services where Mepa has to keep using valuable land to high aded value systems as is shown in the Engineering Exhibition at our Facutly and the IT Faculty where people like Bill Gates started out. I mayself started at the Dockyard, but technology has now changed and my mentality had to change with the time. Some Brilliant young minds are forming in Malta, but many educators still prefer to provide support for the needy rather than the high fliers who will be the columns who supposrt our economy to help those in need.
Please choose the reason of your report below: