Age: 24

College: Jesus

Engineering Specialisation: Materials and Aeronautical

Fourth year project title: I’m actually doing a PhD now, on “Understanding the toughness and ductility of novel steels with mixed microstructures”. My fourth year project was “Aerodynamics of a Solar Car” – or it tried to be.

What your PhD actually involves: Grinding. Which, as it turns out, is the steel version of sanding. Oh, and occasionally skiving off to build solar cars.

Height: 160 cm (0.91 Tom Grimbles – although when you control for the sex and ethnicity variables, I’m actually taller than he is)

Anything else that you feel defines you: Er, steel. And bad engineering jokes. Oh, and I hate rowing with the fire of a thousand suns.

Describe your typical daily routine:

8am – get woken up by annoying neighbour

8.30am – get up, make breakfast (EGGY SOLDIERS) and a packed lunch

9.15am – cycle into the department

9.30 am – arrive at work, read the internet

10.30am – start working

11am – break Thermecmastor Z

12pm – break PW175 X-ray diffractometer

1pm – give up, go for lunch

2pm – back to the department, prepare steel samples for analysis. Break cutting disc. Track down new cutting disc.

2.30pm – cut samples

2.40pm – wait for puny undergrads to finish grinding their samples so I can use the machines.

2.50pm – grind samples

3pm – accidentally let go of sample on grinding disc, watch it ping into the corner of the room, start grinding again from scratch.

3.10pm – polish samples

3.12pm – accidentally let go of sample on polishing disc, watch it ping into the wall and ricochet into the corner of the room, start grinding and polishing again from scratch

3.30pm – Etch sample. Over-do it. Start grinding and polishing again from scratch. Accidentally mix ethanol with nitric acid, causing small exothermic reaction. Lose sample in chaos. Start again from scratch.

4pm – Samples lab shuts. Give up. Go to supervision. Spend 2 hours explaining to undergraduates why you cannot build yachts out of sandstone or aircraft out of osmium.

6.05pm – read a couple of academic papers.

6.30pm – forget contents of academic papers

7pm – realize I have forgotten bike lights, wheel bike home.

7.40pm make dinner. Drop it on the floor. Start again from scratch.

8.30 – write blog posts. Tweet.

10pm – Design composites

12am – Go to bed

2am – sleep

If you could be any element on the periodic table, what would you be and why?

Hydrogen – because I’m tiny but have a tendency to explode

What three things would you choose to take with you to a desert island (such as Australia…)?

Toilet paper. Not very exciting, but then, I’ve been before

Popsicles

And…for the last one, I’m torn between bug spray and a Tardis. There’s a LOT of bugs out there…

What does your ideal Saturday night involve?

Flying dinosaurs, 1 MW laser beams and college boathouses.

Don’t you mean 1 mW?

No.

How many hairdryers would it take to power you?

One. If it was really, really big and shaped like a solar car.

If your subteam had to compete in an Olympic (or Winter Olympic or Paralympic) event, which would it be and why?

Curling. It’s a ridiculous sport but it basically just involves sanding ice…

What is your favourite joke?

Tom Grimble

If you were a Pokemon, which would you be?

Registeel – it’s made out of the stuff I’m supposed to be designing. That could be handy.

What was the first thing you ever wanted to be when you grew up? Has it changed?

A paleontologist. I applied to Cambridge to do Natural Sciences so that I could dig up dinosaurs one day. Then after my first Saturday morning maths lecture I decided to become an engineer instead, make loads of money, and buy a dinosaur. And a 1 MW laser beam…

If you had to organize a Cambridge bop, what would the theme be, and what costume would you wear?

Eurovision. I’d paint myself blue and go as a wave from Katrina and the Waves. I’ve already got most of the bits from when I dressed up as a beach a couple of years back…

If your subteam were on the Titanic and there wasn’t enough room in the lifeboats for all of you, who would go down with the ship?

Probably me, given how much I hate rowing.

If you were CUER’s Title Sponsor, what name would you give to the car and the team for the 2011 WSC?

Car: HotAss 3 – it stands for Hot Assembly 3, and is a tribute to HotAss 2, the IDP robot I built in 2^nd year. And which turned out rather better than Endeavour.

Team: The Lustful Buccaneers

What is your favourite xkcd cartoon?

Engineering hubris

Beep beep!

What should CUER’s theme tune be?

If I had a million dollars by the Barenaked Ladies

Dan, the electrical team leader, came up with a theme tune for the composites team. What do you think it should be?

I’m still sanding – by Elton John

I don’t think those are the lyrics..

They are if you’ve been sanding for long enough.

- Martin

Also on the composites front, hatches have been cut in the front and rear fairings to allow access to the wheels and suspension parts without removing the whole shell.  This should allow us to easily check the car over, and, for instance, change the tyres in the event of a flat.

- Mike

Conclusion

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

After much time had passed, the first layer was complete. Some extra carbon fibre strips were laid around the boundary. Much painting of corrosive, toxic resin was involved and, since, Lucy’s favourite stripy jester trousers had been bleached by the foul stuff, she took no chances and fully suited up in one of those protective things. Despite this, she still managed to get epoxy up her nose. This was not pleasant. Some unplanned extra composite material was also made when Lucy’s hair dipped in the resin by accident. After everything was laid up and resined, release film, felt and finally a vacuum bag were placed on top of the mould which fully sealed it. After some false starts with the vacuum cleaner and then the pump, most of the air was removed and a good 30 minutes spent listening for and plugging leaks. By 1am our heroes had almost reached the end of their task, at which point Kento, overzealous in his electrical safety of turning everything off, unplugged the pump which steadfastly refused to start until Rob did something magical. But Rob had almost run out of magic.

At the end of our tether, our heroes left him tending to an overheating pump, sitting contentedly amidst the large piles of dry plywood and two canisters of flammable gas. Kento was suitably reprimanded with an eyeful of resin.

And so our heroes passed the third task.

When all the tasks were complete, our heroes were overcome with an irresistible sleepiness, and soon fell sound asleep. When morning arrived, the crude layers of wood, CFRP and nomex had vanished, to be replaced with a mysterious-looking black shiny object. After much poking with sticks, it came unstuck, and was finally free, although some buckling was noticed in a region of nomex which may or may not have been in the vicinity of a small screwdriver incident earlier on in the evening.

As the item was turned over, Kento saw once more the beautiful shell of his dreams and knew that he had at last found his true love. Lucy the Jester was rewarded for her months of faithful leadership, bravery and cunning, with the valiant Honda, and nearly ran over a rabbit.

Our heroes began their return, reaching 106mph on the dual carriageway and arriving back in the kingdom victorious, to the joy of the king and queen, who showered them with gifts.

And they all lived happily ever after.

Part 3

Part 1

Part 2

At this point, Rob revealed that, by using magical drill-bits, our heroes had impregnated the mould with magical properties, and by rubbing it, they would be able to conjure up a genie. First the mould was rubbed with sandpaper to smooth out the filler. Next the mould was rubbed with wax. Eventually, after much hard waxing, during which our heroes developed many outstanding martial arts powers as a side-effect, a genie did indeed appear, whose name was Amber, and granted our heroes three wishes.

For the first wish, Kento wished for CFRP as black as ebony.

For the second wish, Kento wished for nomex as golden as the sun.

For the third wish, Lucy wished for cookies.

The heroes were therefore left without any resin. Lucy’s wish was not in vain, however, since Rob was easily won over with a cookie and readily agreed to supply resin and hardener in exchange for a yummy snack.

Yet there were more challenges, because, as it turned out, Amber the Genie was particularly mischievous. As a result, on unwrapping the carbon fibre, our heroes encountered something never seen before, but which looked like someone had tried to make a rug out of recycled VHS tape. It was apparently created by the same entity that came up with the Medusa, since it was liable to disintegrate if it was so much as looked at. In addition to this, Rob’s vacuum pump failed to function. With this new series of mishaps fully uncovered, our heroes, undaunted, began to mix dangerous chemicals together to form the resin, and painted the mould with it. The first layer of carbon fibre was pasted on top, in a vastly scaled-up version of the traditional ‘cutting out and sticking in’, and although our heroes tried to avert their gazes, they could not help glancing at it, resulting in a first layer that did not resemble the beautiful shell but rather an average shell with more holes than a tea-strainer. This was covered with more resin, and then pre-ply (a special sheet to roughen the surface of the CFRP) was laid down. Due to the lack of a vacuum pump, our heroes had to spend an hour or so squashing out 10 square metres’ worth of bubbles by hand. They then put lots of weights all over the mould to squash out all the warps. Kento narrowly escaped toxic resin being flicked in his face after he became unnecessarily violent for no apparent reason, possibly due to being overwhelmed by the fumes. Snacks were had by all.

On to the exciting conclusion…

Part 2

Part 1

Rob told our heroes that in order to free the beautiful shell, they must first tame the mould. He took them to a large workshop, and showed them the ribs belonging to the mould. They had to put all the ribs back together in their proper shape and screw them down before daybreak. But alas! On trying to fit the ribs of the mould together, Kento and Lucy discovered that two pieces were missing without which the great monster would never be trapped. Undeterred, Kento ventured into the forest until he met a lumberjack. The lumberjack – Mark – helped Kento cut replacements for the missing pieces out of wood which were, as it turned out, 2mm too thick. But the lumberjack was good and kind and sanded down the bits until they fitted with the rest of the ribs – even though he got completely covered with dust and looked utterly ridiculous.

And so our heroes passed the first test.

Once the trap was built, Rob described how the giant mould had to be lured into the trap before it could be tamed. By cutting out many large sheets of plywood and screwing them down on top of the ribs, the mould would be fully immobilised. This task was harder than the first. Luckily, fate was on their side. Charlie the queen and Martin the king’s advisor had been journeying when a vicious snowstorm drove them off course, until they encountered our heroes, and agreed to help. All five worked hard to screw the plywood down, although Lucy’s progress was hampered by Martin drilling holes so wide that no screw would fit. It snowed harder and harder, yet our heroes were not discouraged, even when they had to give Charlie and Martin a lift back in the Honda. Charlie was particularly rude to Lucy, throwing a snowball in her face twice while she was making snow angels. However, revenge was very literally served cold when Lucy dropped a snowball down Charlie’s back while they were on the motorway, and he was distracted watching another car crash into a tree in a comical way. 

Lucy and Kento soon returned to complete the screwing down of plywood. Rob gave them three magical drill-bits, which were so small as to be invisible to the naked eye, to speed up their task. Disaster struck twice when Lucy knocked over the drill, snapping the first drill-bit, and broke the second when trying to drill into the ferocious ribs. At this point she was forbidden from using the drill so that the last drill-bit would not be lost. Instead she stuck balsawood all around the outside of the mould to form the joggle. Finally, a precious item was placed within the plywood and ribs to lure the giant monster into the trap. Kento, being a poor swineherd, had nothing of value, but Lucy happened to have Charlie’s shiny keys, which may or may not have been pinched with a view to further retaliation for the snowball throwing. They were sealed inside with the monster. The sealing itself took many hours involving very, very tough polyfiller, but was eventually complete.

And so our heroes passed the second test, although in his excitement, Kento missed the motorway exit and our heroes had to spend some time wandering lost in the surrounding area until Lucy remembered there was a map in the back.

On to Part 3…

The Taming of the Mould

 Part 1

Cast

Kento Taoka (Composites) as Kento the Oafish Swineherd

Lucy Fielding (Aero, Logistics, Socials, Survival) as Lucy the Merry Jester

Rob Martin (Technical Advisor) as Rob the Wise Man

Anthony Law (Team Manager) as King Anthony

Charlie Watt (Technical Director) as Queen Charlie

Martin McBrien (Advisor) as Martin the King’s Advisor

Mark Brinkley (PR) as Mark the Dusty Lumberjack

Bethany as The Beautiful Shell

Once upon a time there was a poor swineherd named Kento. He lived in squalor in the Engineering Department, slaving away day and night in the vast kingdom of Cambridge. One day, as he was carrying out his daily chores, he chanced upon a room that he had never seen before. Upon entering it, he discovered a Magic Computer Screen that was twice as long as a dinner plate and three times as wide, embellished with plastic as dark as night, and an off-switch that clicked in a satisfying way when pressed. He gazed into the Magic Screen, entranced, and saw the image of a beautiful solar car upper shell, with a surface as smooth as silk and as white as snow. Its core was of honeycomb nomex, as golden as the sun, wrapped in flowing lengths of CFRP as black as ebony. 

Days and weeks went by, and, try as he might, Kento could not forget about the beautiful shell, and returned every day to gaze into the Magic Screen. Eventually, he decided that he must leave the kingdom to seek his fortune, and asked the King for permission. The King, whose name was Anthony, agreed, but told Kento that his quest would be in vain, for the beautiful shell was kept prisoner in a land far, far away, by a monstrous composite mould.

However Kento would not be swayed. He searched the entire kingdom for someone who had knowledge of the mould but no citizen had ever heard of such a thing, except for one man. This man, Rob Martin, told Kento he knew how to free the beautiful shell from the mould. It would not be easy – there would be many challenges and tests, since only the most worthy would be able to defeat the mould. Although many mighty warriors lived in the kingdom, all refused to go on such a dangerous journey, believing there to be no reward. In desperation the king sent out proclamation after proclamation, until finally they reached the ears of the Court Jester. The Jester, whose name was Lucy, was gallant and brave, and agreed to undertake the quest.

Finally, the king decreed that Kento should have a valiant steed. He offered the choice of any horse in his stable but Kento declined, saying that he was only a humble swineherd. Hearing this, the king instead called the Court Wizard, Marshall, who took a humble ball bearing and, with a wave of his wand, transformed it into a sleek, elegant Honda Jazz, with a CD player and even a little thing you plug your mp3 player into.

And so our heroes packed all their belongings in a sack, and set off for the far-off land of Bedford…

On to Part 2…