Masterclasses and Industrial Workshops

WMG is a hub of collaboration between academia and industry, driving innovation in applied science, technology and engineering. This provided an excellent insight into the potential that academic-industrial collaboration has within the automotive sector. During this visit to WMG students were fortunate enough to witness first-hand the cutting-edge research and world leading facilities through a tour of the Energy Innovation Centre (EIC) – a national facility for all aspects of battery research, from materials and electrochemistry through to application integration and recycling. 

This workshop included a visit to both Aspire Engineering and MCT Reman, and a tour of both facilities. The workshop was focussed on sustainable engineering solutions, such as the design and manufacturing for recycle-ability.

AB Dynamics is one of the world’s leading specialists in automotive test systems across a wide range of applications, from validation and durability to the development of advanced technologies for active safety and autonomous driving. As part of the MRes year our students in Cohort 1 had the opportunity to visit, to partake in a demonstration of their in-house Advanced Vehicle Driving Simulator (aVDS) for a closer look at safety and autonomous driving and virtually drive a range of vehicles.

Wendy Sadler from Science Made Simple delivered a public engagement workshop for the CDTS based at University of Bath, ART-AI, CSCT and SAMBa.

The first section of this workshop included an introduction to public engagement 'What do we know? Why do we do it? Who should we engage with and what are the barriers?' and the second section was focussed on what the message is, and thinking about a useful structure for communicating research. Tools for engagement and minimising jargon and some tips on effective delivery.

AAPS CDT Students attended a series of summer masterclasses on the theme Thermal Modelling Techniques. In this session they gained an overview of engine and turbocharger modelling techniques and experience of different simulation software.

AAPS CDT Students attended a series of summer masterclasses on the theme Thermal Modelling Techniques, this session gave an in depth overview of electric motor modelling and architectures.

AAPS CDT Students attended a series of summer masterclasses on the theme Thermal Modelling Techniques, this session gave an overview of three different modelling domains within SaberRD: Electrical, Mechanical and Thermal. Students constructed a basic model for each of the three domains and simulated various typical scenarios, allowing them to solidify our knowledge whilst gaining experience working in SaberRD.

This workshop, hosted by WECA (West of England Combined Authority), provided an opportunity to work with a local authority and to discuss solutions and improvements to the surrounding mobility and transportation infrastructure while utilising the CDTs multidisciplinary pool of knowledge. This session gave an oversight to WECA's Future Transport Zone (FTZ).

On the 30th of July 2021, Cohort 1 students joined the Sustainable Electric Propulsion (SEP) Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) of Newcastle University for a debating competition on Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). The intention of this was to help students with writing their RRI statements for their PhDs. 

For this day, participants were split into 4 teams. In turns, two teams were given a subject. One team would pitch in favour of the idea, while the second one would persuade the audience into disagreeing with the given statement. The remaining 2 teams would act as the audience and vote for the most convincing argument.

The topics given were in line with the main themes of both CDTs : green propulsion, electrification, and clean energy. By doing this, contributors were all intrinsically challenged by the struggle of defending, or pulling to pieces, their core beliefs and the building blocks of their work environment.

This summer masterclass gave an an overview of sustainability and the opportunity to learn about the theory of LCA (attributional, consequential, use in existing and emerging technology/materials) and look into different case studies.