Welcome to the Community Insights blog!

This blog features posts from and about the EngX community. Want to contribute? Read our blogging guide to help you get started.

  • How to Stop Data Causing Harm

    This Safety Critical Systems Club seminar, held on 4 Dec 2012 in London, aimed to address the safety issues concerned with data-driven systems. Presentations from the day are now available for viewing on iet.tv . The seminar has led to a follow-on series of workshops. For more information, see the SCSC website . Read on to see the list of video presentations available. Speaker Title Alastair Faulkner, Abbeymeade Limited Introduction – Standards and Industrial Practice Paul Ensor, UK Hydrographic Office The Safety of Data and Information Systems Alan Simpson, Ebeni Aeronautical Information – How confident are we it’s correct? Ian Bingham, Logica (now part of CGI) Safety Data in National Infrastructure Projects Mark Nicholson, University of York Topics in Dataware Safety Mike Ainsworth, Altran…

    James Inge
    James Inge

  • The Elevator Pitch...

    Last Tuesday I was in the offices of 123 Buckingham Palace Road waiting for a meeting with the Chairman of the London Network. While sitting in their rather lovely reception area, speaking with Sarah the receptionist and looking in envy at the brightly coloured and fun offices of Google on the third floor, I found myself watching the rather nice looking glass lifts (or elevators as they are also known) in the central atrium area and wondered: "Why is it that the fundamental basics of lift mechanisms haven’t changed that much since they were first introduced?"Last Tuesday I was in the offices of 123 Buckingham Palace Road waiting for a meeting with the Chairman of the London Network. While sitting in their rather lovely reception area, speaking with Sarah the receptionist and looking in envy…

    Lisa Miles
    Lisa Miles

  • Def Stan 00-56 available for review

    The MOD 00-56 Core authoring team would like to invite system safety specialists and relevant Industry organisations to review a draft version Def Stan 00-56 Issue 5 parts 1 and 2. Def Stan 00-56 review packs can only be obtained from the MOD editor. Each review pack is intended for the designated reviewer only, but a Company/Organisation can nominate a co-ordinating reviewer. The cut off date for comments is the 22nd February 2013, but early returns would be appreciated. Def Stan 00-56 is the UK Defence Standard giving Safety Management Requirements for Defence Systems. The current version was published by the Ministry of Defence in 2007. It is being updated to take into account recent developments in procurement and safety management practice. Update 4 Mar 13: Def Stan 00-56 Issue 5 Part…

  • Young Engineers' Competition - Western Aerospace Centre

    See "more" for some info on a local competition for young engineers, closing date for abstracts is the end of this month. I've also uploaded the flyer into the Files area of this website. -- Russ. Dear All, Please can I bring to your attention an exciting opportunity to support the Professional Development of Young Engineers in the South West. The Western Aerospace Centre is running it annual prize competition for Young Engineers. The purpose of the competition is to encourage the ongoing professional development of Young Engineers by entering a competition to deliver a presentation on any aviation related topic. Selected finalists will be invited to give a 20 minute presentation at the competition evening scheduled for April 2013, in front of a panel including engineering directors from the…

    Russ Haines
    Russ Haines

  • Soap gets in your eyes…

    I’m very wary of electric showers. Water, electricity and a human body in a rather ‘vulnerable’ state, all in one space at the same time, is a recipe for disaster in my eyes… Needless to say, when my electric shower started playing up this weekend I was none too pleased and didn’t relish the thought of having to fix it. The shower came with the house and, unlike my own practice of keeping them, the previous owners did not keep the instruction manual. However a quick search on the internet came up trumps with the full installation and service manual (in 0.41 seconds to be precise by using the correct descriptive search terms) which became my Sunday afternoon reading material. A quick read of the manual and it seems that the shower simply needed a purge and a reset. The water company had just…

    Lisa Miles
    Lisa Miles

  • Out With The Old And In With The New...

    You know you’re getting older when you find much joy in the simplest of things… I have a new washing machine!! Yaay! A joyous occasion but also a small tear of sadness…. My friends will tell you that this is a BIG deal in my household. Some of my IET volunteers also know all about my long lasting relationship with my old washing machine. I’ve had it since 1994 and repaired it four times now. Once when the pump broke and I replaced it, then one of the impeller blades in the pump snapped off, so I took it apart and glued it back together (it’s still working to this day), replaced the capacitor as the drum wasn’t turning with enough force (it’s an induction motor) and fixed a faulty vacuum switch as it wasn’t switching to drain the drum (it did this while I was dyeing the kitchen rug bright red…

    Lisa Miles
    Lisa Miles

  • Present Around The World (PATW) Event Report (2013)

    The IET Victoria Present Around The World (PATW) 2013 competition was held on November 22, 2012, at RMIT University in Melbourne. The event was attended by both IET members and the general public. Full event report Photos Event summary The finalists were each provided an allotted time slot of 10 minutes to present their project followed by a round of questions from the audience and judges. The criteria for the contestants included presentation skills, time management, impressions and impact on audience and clarity in delivery of the material. Congratulations to Nicholas Venables , who was adjudged to be the winner of the competition and awarded the winner's certificate and a cash prize of $225. Nicholas will now participate as the Victorian representative in the national Australian Competition…

    Rowan P
    Rowan P

  • Learning the Lessons from Major Accidents

    Following the loss of the RAF Nimrod aircraft XV230 in 2006, with the lives of all 14 service personnel on board, Charles Haddon-Cave QC was commissioned to write an independent report. One of his recommendations for a new safety culture in the Ministry of Defence was that there should be briefings for all those in Leadership positions of the lessons to be learned from the loss of Challenger, Columbia, Nimrod XV230 and other major accidents. Haddon-Cave pointed out uncanny, and worrying, parallels between the organisational causes of the loss of Nimrod XV230 and the organisational causes of the loss of the NASA Space Shuttle ‘Columbia’, stating that the report of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board should be required reading for anyone involved in aviation safety. He also noted further…

    James Inge
    James Inge

  • Interview with Nigel Fine on Talking Business with Alan Kohler

    Whilst recently visiting Australia, Nigel Fine (Chief Executive and Secretary of the IET) recorded an interview with Alan Kohler for his Talking Business radio channel on Qantas Radio. It should be available to all Qantas airline passengers throughout December to listen to in-flight. However, it is also available online for you to listen to : Qantas Radio website ( direct link to Nigel's interview ) In the interview, Nigel speaks about how the IET differentiates itself from Engineers Australia, how the IET addresses the shortage of engineers around the world (by targeting younger people in schools, also the PATW competition) , why is the T in IET, etc. The interview is nine minutes long.

    Rowan P
    Rowan P

  • The Retired Professional Engineers' Club

    The Retired Professional Engineers' Club (Bristol) was set up in 1994 with the assistance of what was then the local IEE committee. It's intended to further the aims and interests of engineers by arranging regular events for retired professional engineers. The club's still going strong now, and its events have a social aspect, to encourage both members and their partners to come to all events. Meetings are normally in St. Peters Church Hall, The Drive, Henleaze, BS9 4LD. Talks start at 1400, with tea and biscuits to follow. Engineers of all disciplines are welcome, whatever their institution, as are visitors. For more information about the club, see its website at http://www.rpec.co.uk/ .

    James Inge
    James Inge

  • Dear Santa...

    Can I have a pair of these for Christmas please? The Daily Mail calls them the Workaholic’s dream gadget. I, on the other hand, just like the geek factor (5) of being able to locate your friends with the 'Buddy Tracker' and view GPS statistics while on the move. However, I don’t Ski so the Airwave app will not be of any use to me. Unless they bring out one for MTBikers based on the same format of course... As you’ve probably guessed by now, I love new technology and seeing what it can do. I love the fact that everything works together and connects to eachother. Fridges that talk to your local shop to tell them what you’ve run out of, smartphones that can control the appliances in your home. I think it’s great! I'm even looking into having a smart meter installed at home so I can keep an eye…

    Lisa Miles
    Lisa Miles

  • The name's Bond...James Bond.

    I’m so excited….! Today is the day of the release of the new James Bond film ‘Skyfall’. I’ve been looking forward to it for sooooo long now and today I’m just fit to burst! I’m taking the afternoon off to go to the cinema (which is just behind us at Michael Faraday House). I did want to see it at the IMax in Waterloo, London but they’re sold out for today, and the next, and the next... However, it has got me thinking about the power of Facebook.. “That’s off on a tangent!” I hear you say. Let me explain… I have 007 - James Bond as one of my ‘likes’ and for some time now (probably over 18 months or so) their PR machine has been posting regular updates on their page. Throughout the time of its filming we saw snippets of information, a few behind the scenes images (nothing too detailed to give…

    Lisa Miles
    Lisa Miles

  • More from the System Safety Conference

    The IET have posted their congratulations to the conference chair, Dr Carl Sandom, on receiving the International System Safety Society's International Award. They've also put photos from conference on Flickr . We will post links here to any presentations or other material that is made available online. While the 2012 conference is over, plans are already being made for next year's event. Provisional dates for the 2013 conference are 14 – 17 October, and you can keep up to date with plans at http://conferences.theiet.org/system-safety/

    James Inge
    James Inge

  • 2012 Safety Conference Videos

    The 7th International Conference on System Safety, incorporating the Cyber Security Conference , was held from 15 - 18 October 2012 in Edinburgh, UK. If you didn't manage to make it to the conference, you can still see many of the presentations via IET.tv . Read on to see the list of video presentations available. Session Speaker Title Keynote 1 Warren Naylor System Safety - A Glimpse into the Future Keynote 2 Peter Bernard Ladkin Some "Hot Issues" in Software-Safety Standardisation Keynote 3 Mike StJohn-Green Cyber Security - Who says we're safe? Keynote 4 Chris Elliott The safety of complex engineered products - what's changed since Haddon-Cave? 1.a.3 Jeremy Dick Evidence-based development - coupling structured argumentation with requirements development 1.b.1 Klaus McDonald-Maier A practical…

    James Inge
    James Inge

  • Australian team hails bionic eye success

    For those of you who attended our Network11 event last year, you may remember our keynote speakers were from the Bionics Institute , and delivered presentations outlining their work in technologies to assist the hearing and vision impaired. On the 30th of August 2012, the Bionics Institute announced the successful implant and stimulation of Australia's first prototype bionic eye! You can read an article (and see a video interview with the implant recipient) on the ABC News website .

    Rowan P
    Rowan P

  • ....and on a clear day, you can see for miles!

    I was at the John Logie Baird lecture last night, listening to Peter Heslop of Arqiva speaking about the Digital Switchover (DSO). During his presentation he showed this video of a helicopter being used during an Antenna lift (no I don’t want to be a helicopter pilot now.. ) . What amazed me were the three gentlemen climbing to the top of the antenna to facilitate its construction… To coin a well-used piece of text speak.. OMG….!

    Lisa Miles
    Lisa Miles

  • Cue Theme to Mission Impossible….

    There is much fun to be had with the installation of PIR security lights… My partner and I have just installed some at our new home. A porch light for the front, one for the side driveway and one for the back garden. We spent Sunday evening trying to ‘sneak up’ on them to see how far we could get before the PIR detector spotted us… much to the amusement of our new neighbours who must have been wondering what on earth we were doing…I’m surprised our evening adventures weren’t followed by a visit from the local constabulary… Everyone is familiar with them but I wonder how many people know how they actually work and what is inside them? I don’t! So… to satisfy my inner geek I spent some time surfing the internet to find out, and came across this ‘PIR teardown and tutorial’ on youtube which was…

    Lisa Miles
    Lisa Miles

  • I am Solar Powered….

    It’s true..! I am… My friends have known this for many years. I am at my best when the sun is shining. During the autumn and winter months I have a special 10,000 lux desk lamp in the office to combat SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) and stop me wanting to hibernate until March. It’s like sitting outside in the midday sun in the height of summer! I have a plethora of solar powered gadgets at home. Solar lights in the garden, a solar powered desk fan, solar powered ornaments that move around when the sun is shining and even a solar powered battery charger that lives on my (south facing) kitchen windowsill. Unfortunately my garden isn’t big enough to warrant having one of these but believe me if it was, I would! However, I’m not keen on having solar panels installed on the roof as I’m not sure…

    Lisa Miles
    Lisa Miles

  • Noooooooooooo………!

    .... is the sound you make when you realise that you should have spent that little bit more money and bought the 64GB iPad instead of the 32. I was recently off sick for a few days and spend a lot of time under the duvet with the iPad watching various films and TV programmes. Halfway through downloading Series 2 of Sherlock from iTunes, it decided to tell me that I didn’t have enough storage capacity. Thus ensues the agonising decision of what to delete in order to free up the space needed. Do I really want to delete ‘100 greatest ‘70’s Disco Hits’ in favour of keeping ‘The Complete Stone Roses’…? Cue another Big Bang Theory moment where ((Music + video) / storage capacity) x happiness = should have bought a larger gigabyte iPad. I really should investigate Cloud Computing and keep some stuff…

    Lisa Miles
    Lisa Miles

  • Thousands of channels and there’s nothing on…..

    I don’t watch much television... Actually I should say that I’m just ‘choosy’ in what I watch. I can’t simply sit in front of it and watch whatever happens to be on. However, there are particular programmes that I like and will make time to see such as The Big Bang Theory (of course) and the wonderful recent BBC series ‘Sherlock’ (another programme that makes being ‘odd’ rather cool ) Broadcasting, television and the way in which we watch it have become more and more advanced since I was a child (which wasn’t that long ago really...) with the introduction of satellite and cable TV, Digital Television, High Definition, 3D, Internet TV and On Demand services. Which leads me to wonder, where does it go next? Where is television and broadcasting heading in the future? I’m going to the annual John…

  • The start of something wonderful...

    1 st October heralds the start of the new session for the IET's Communities. Lots of really exciting events and activities coming up this year which you can find on our Events Calendar My colleagues and I will be busy supporting our army of volunteers to produce their events and activities which are, in the main, open to the general public for everyone's enjoyment (why should we keep all the fun to ourselves..? ) Most are free to attend and take place in the evenings so why not come along and learn something new?

    Lisa Miles
    Lisa Miles

  • A Room With A View...

    If you’ve ever been to the IET’s Savoy Place venue in London I’m sure you know that the view from the balcony in the Riverside Room is amazing. Spanning a 180 degree view along the river Thames from the Palace of Westminster and Big Ben, down stream to Canary Wharf and St Pauls Cathedral. And at night, when the city lights up, it’s even more magical… The view however, is forever changing with the continuous construction of new buildings and the newest kid on the block is even taller and shinier than those before. So tall in fact, that at 1017ft, it’s now the tallest (habitable) building in Europe. I’m sure the view from the top is stunning but at £25 to access the viewing platform, I’m not sure that I’ll get to see it anytime soon… Those who know London well will know that I’m referring to…

    Lisa Miles
    Lisa Miles

  • The train arriving at platform one, will not stop here…..

    Whenever I arrive at Kings Cross station in transit to Savoy Place, I’ve always wondered if they ever test the buffers at the end of the platform to see if they will actually stop an ‘out of control’ speeding train doing some 90 mph? Not that it will ever happen given the level of technology present to prevent such an occurrence, but it is something that I’ve always wondered about. It’s also something that I wouldn’t mind seeing if they ever did test them… So any of you Safety or Railway Engineers out there, give me a call if you hear of anything! I had another ‘inner Sheldon Cooper’ moment yesterday... At Covent Garden tube station I overheard a small child asking his mother why it was so windy in the underground tunnels. I resisted the temptation to launch into a full on explanation of the…

    Lisa Miles
    Lisa Miles

  • Where's The Screwdriver...?

    Anyone who knows me well will tell you that yes, I am a geek. Some will say that I’m all five characters of The Big Bang Theory rolled into one which can be amusing for some and frustrating for many others…  Not interested in girls toys as a child but rather more intrigued by my brother’s electronic toys, often taking them apart to see how they worked. Much to the annoyance of my brother and even more so my parents, as (as usually happens) there was always a few bits left over when I reassembled it and it never quite worked the same... on Boxing Day.  I think I can be forgiven though as I was only around 8 or 9 at the time.    However, the tinkering never quite stopped and more recently a gas installer servicing my boiler had to contend with me looking over his shoulder telling him which wires…

    Lisa Miles
    Lisa Miles

Community Rules & Guidelines