Park Hall EES and Jaguar Cars

University Residential

University Residential

In December 2001 we were invited by the Engineering Education Scheme to go on a four day residential at Birmingham University. This would give us the chance to use the modern technical facilities to implement our designs and also to get a feel for what University life is really like.

Diary of the Four Day Residential

Tuesday 18\12\2001:

9:00-9:45 - Registration in foyer. We got to the university at 8:30. After 5 minutes our teacher, naming no names (Mr Cornell) asked us if we had everything we needed; we shrugged our shoulders and grunted a bit as you do at that time of the morning. He must have saw that as a yes...he walked of left us to fend for ourselves we never saw him again! We then had to wait until 9:00am before we knew what to do.

10:30-11:00 - An introduction to residential workshop. This was the first of many lectures we had at the university, this one was bad as we had all had an early morning and all everyone wanted to do was sleep.

11:00-5:00pm - Looked over our final designs with our engineer, found a few problems with a couple of the designs and made modifications there and then. Used word on computers to generate drawings with measurements for final designs. We had tried to use a graphics package on the computers but our computer expert couldn't figure it out so we gave up on that idea and thats why they ended up on a word processor.

5:00-6:30pm - Registration of accommodation for residence. After all our work was done we waited for our teacher to take us down to the halls of residence. We all found our rooms and got settled apart from Kevin whose keys wouldn't open his door and he was given another room to another room. (Which he liked better anyway, it had a better view and didn't smell of rotting carrots).

6:30-7:30pm - Evening meal. We all met up after a game of pool and went down to the hall for something to eat.

7:30-9:30pm - Guest lecture. After the meal we all got on a coach and went to the lecture hall near the rugby grounds for a 2hr lecture. After a hard days work all you want to do is go to sleep and I think that's what most of us did. Mainly because we don't have many memories of this or even what it was about.

9:30pm- Residence settles in. After the lecture we all went back to the residence halls, played another game of pool went into the bar and had a couple of SOFT drinks after which we all headed up to bed.

11:30pm- Bed. Thank God!

Wednesday 19/12/2001

7:30-8:00- Breakfast. This was the only meal of the week that Shelley never got to see. As Kevin only woke her up afterwards and at the same nearly broke down her door.

9.00-5.00- Workshop. Began construction of three of our four designs. Decided not to make one of the designs (Project Ravernace) as it would have been too heavy, we could not be made small enough to fit into the car and lets be honest Lee hadn't really thought about it. We later gave him his prescription of a few slaps round the head and he saw sense. We also altered the shape of Design 1 (Project Dave). We changed it because of the size of the equipment. Changed to a smaller design, which was lighter and could easily be moved around. The design has also been made to suit and fit into its surroundings.

7.45-10.00- Recreation time. We all went down to the sports hall to play a few games of badminton, we all came back early and decided to play pool and go to the bar instead. After that settle down and to bed.

Thursday 20/12/01

7.30-8.00- Breakfast

9.00-5.00- Workshop. Finished off construction of designs one and two. Found a problem with thread. Bolt wouldn't screw in and secure the pedal so we had to hollow it out by 10.2mm. The sizes of the screws are 10mm by .8mm pitch on both designs. Started on third design. Didn't construct design three (Project Lacey) we had to wait on new equipment and would construct it back at school . Kevin began to create this website in order to support our project.

6.30-7.30- Evening meal

7.45-10.00 - Presentation practice. This was a lecture that we had during which we found out when we were doing the presentation at the N.E.C and what work was expected of us. After this we again went to play a game of pool and again finished in the bar. Then we settled down and were in bed by 12

Friday 21/12/01

7.30-8.00- Breakfast

8:30 - We went to the main engineer who was in charge of all the teams working in electrical to show him our designs and how we modified them and any further improvements we are going to make on them.

9.00- Leave. At last a rest away from the madness of student life.

Diary of the Four Day Residential

Tuesday 18\12\2001:

Wednesday 19/12/2001