Category Archives: Engineering

Our World In Motion

Posted on by

This week is National Science & Engineering Week, and to mark the occasion the Library is hosting a special exhibition celebrating this year’s theme, ‘Our World In Motion’.

No, don’t worry, it’s got nothing to do with a certain dodgy World Cup football song of 1990′s yore! The display celebrates the invention and innovation in applications of human movement from human powered forms of transport, through leisure and recreational activities to new devices which convert human effort into power in a sustainable way, illustrating not only human movement in all its diverse forms and some of the methods developed over the years for recording it, but how human movement can be used to power a variety of devices from simple hand pumps to human-powered aircraft capable of sustained flight.

For more information about other NSEW events and activities which Loughborough University will be providing from 9th-18th March, visit the website http://www.lboro.ac.uk/nsew/index.html

Free workshop on time management

Posted on by

alarm clock

Struggling to balance all your commitments? Want to avoid last minute panic with coursework deadlines looming?  Learn useful tips on time management and action planning by dropping  into the Library’s Training Room 1 from 12pm- 12.50 pm on Thursday 8th  March for the Library’s Get the Know-How course – Making the most of your Time

Book a place on the Get the Know-How module on Learn LBAOO1

More information about the course and resources on time management can be found at

http://www.lboro.ac.uk/services/library/skills/topicslist/topic—time-management.html

Icon courtesy of alessandro rei at www.iconfinder.com

Finding Quality Information for your Assignments-Engineering

Posted on by

                                                 Do you need to find journal articles to complete your assignments? Are you struggling to know where to begin?  If so why not come to David Davies Building, Room W003 at 1pm on Monday 5th March for the Library’s Get the Know-How course – Finding Quality Information for your Assignments-Engineering

Book a place on the Get the Know-How module on Learn LBAOO1

 information about the course and other resources to help with finding journal articles can be found at: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/services/library/skills/topicslist/topic—your-literature-search.html

IIcon courtesy of alessandro rei at www.iconfinder.com

Everybody Wants a Piece of Pi!

Posted on by

A pocket-money priced revolutionary new British computer went on sale first thing this Wednesday morning, and not only almost instantly sold out, but crashed all the websites of the vendors selling it!

The Raspberry Pi, a credit-card sized barest-of-bare bones accumulation of various basic PC chips and circuits being retailed for £22, is the brain-child of a Cambridge charitable foundation that hopes to inspire a new generation of computer programmers in the same way that the the home computer boom of the 1980′s did. Judging from this morning’s demand, it seems to have provoked the right effect!

The Pi is run from a common ARM chip using a version of the open-source operating system Linux. It has a USB port for a keyboard, an Ethernet port for internet access and an HDMI port for video output. Users have to supply their own keyboard and screen, or plug it into a TV set – just like old Sinclair ZX Spectrums and Commodore 64′s of early computer yore!

If computer hardware and software is your thing, we have a considerable cornucopia of resources in print and in electronic format available to meet every taste. Why not have a browse of Library Catalogue Plus and see what we’ve got?

Raspberry Pi image copyright Blogee.net, reproduced under CC License from Flickr.

Finding Quality Information for your Assignments- Science

Posted on by

man runningDo you need to find journal articles to complete your assignments? Are you struggling to know where to begin?  If so why not come to G Block, Room G006 at 12pm on Friday 2nd  March for the Library’s Get the Know-How course – Finding Quality Information for your Assignments-Science 

 

Book a place on the Get the Know-How module on Learn LBAOO1

 information about the course and other resources to help with finding journal articles can be found at: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/library/skills/understand-info.html

IIcon courtesy of alessandro rei at www.iconfinder.com

Making the most of your reading – free workshop

Posted on by
book page

Are you suffering from information overload? Find out about strategies for making your reading more efficient by dropping into the Library Training Room 1 at 12pm -12.50pm on Thursday 1st March for the Library’s free Get the Know-how course – Making the most of your Reading.

Book a place on the Get the Know-How module on Learn LBAOO1

More information about the course and other resources to help with reading skills can be found at: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/services/library/skills/topicslist/topic—reading-efficiently.html#

IIcon courtesy of alessandro rei at www.iconfinder.com

Boldly Returning From Where No Man Had Gone Before…

Posted on by

Fifty years ago today John Glenn made a successful return to Earth after his Mercury space capsule Friendship 7 completed three orbits of the Earth.

Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first man into space on April 12 1961, and Alan Shepard the first American into space three weeks afterwards, but Glenn had made history by becoming the first NASA astronaut to achieve and hold orbit. Three more successful Mercury missions followed before NASA switched their attention to a more ambitious goal – landing a man on the Moon. Successive Gemini and Apollo space programs saw the culmination of this goal with the successful lunar landing of Neil Armstrong’s Apollo 11 mission in July 1969.

The Library possesses a large range of material about space flight and the history of astronautics, including access to NASA’s Scientific & Technical Information (STI) web site among our extensive array of Aeronautical databases. But if you’re more into the historical and social side of manned spaceflight rather than the technical stuff, you can find day-to-day press chronicles of every astronautical feat from the 20th century among our newspaper archives such as The Times Digital Archive and The Daily Mirror Archive. 

Pictured is the launch of John Glenn’s Friendship 7 capsule on February 20th 1962, from the NASA Collection reproduced  under CC License from Flickr.

36 years ago the skies got a whole lot noisier!

Posted on by
CC licenced photo from Flickr

Concorde: love her or hate her, she certainly turned heads.

In January 1976 Concorde began flying commercial routes. The controversial craft was a product of Anglo-French collaboration. Flying at supersonic speeds, London to New York was possible in 3 hours 20 minutes. In 1985 singer Phil Collins performed at the Live Aid concert in London then flew by Concorde to the US to perform at the Live Aid concert in Philadelphia.  

A string of technical problems and the ill-fated flight from Paris in July 2000 in which 113 people lost their lives, effectively signalled the beginning of the end for Concorde. The iconic craft flew (with passengers) for the last time in October 2003.

To find out more about the Concorde story check out one of our books  or search the newspapers via the Nexis database. For technical information on the craft search the Aerospace database, IANS Aircraft Performance Database or ESDU databases. You will find these and other related databases in the Aeronautical subcategory of the Aero & Auto Engineering category on Library Catalogue Plus. A useful printed resource is Jane’s All the Worlds Aircraft which is shelved at 629.1/JAN

The Queen Elizabeth Engineering Prize

Posted on by

Image copyright freefotouk, reproduced under CC Licence

A new award, worth £1 million, was launched by Prime Minister David Cameron at London’s Science Museum yesterday, with the primary objective of raising the profile of engineering globally.

The Queen Elizabeth Engineering Prize,  funded by an endowment from a number of engineering companies, will be awarded biannually to an individual or team for making “groundbreaking advances in engineering which has created significant benefit to humanity”. The competition is open to anybody of any nationality.

Mr Cameron – joined at the launch by rival political leaders Nick Clegg and Ed Milliband in a rare show of cross-party unity – hopes the prize will go on to assume the same stature and importance as the Nobel Prizes.

Loughborough University enjoys a proud history of engineering achievement, and this is reflected by the rich selection of engineering resources available from the Library, easily searchable via our Library Catalogue Plus system.

Our Cars Electric?

Posted on by

 The University has taken a further big step in its quest to help the environment by lowering its road vehicle emissions by investing in two new electrically powered trucks.

These utility vehicles, which were jointly purchased by Facilities Management and imago Services can travel up to 50 miles on a single battery charge, and can carry 500kg and tow up to 2,000kg.

The vehicles will be used by the maintenance and imago Services teams across  campus. Typical jobs will include the collection of waste and recycling, and transporting goods and equipment to the many conferences and events on campus.

The vans, supplied by epower Trucks, use around 4p per mile in electricity - a saving of up to 80% compared to a diesel van. The simplicity of the electric motor means that maintenance requirements – and costs – are also a lot lower than on a diesel vehicle. Even when powered by National Grid electricity, the vehicle reduces CO2 emissions by up to 50%.

If you’re interested in learning more about this kind of technology, the Library has a growing collection of material about electric & hybrid vehicle engineering among our book and journal stock as well as the latest up-to-date information and research among the Aero-Auto engineering databases on Library Catalogue Plus.