Graduations were held this week, amidst much pomp and ceremony. There were gowns and golden hoods, flat hats and plastic tubes with ribbons round…the sun shone, then it rained (most auspiciously) and the proud mums and dads numbered in their thousands.

It’s been a hard four years, and this last year has, for most, been one of the toughest. Receiving a degree from the University of Cambridge is an outstanding achievement, and to get through finals while building a solar car on the side is doubly so.

A well-earned congratulations, therefore, goes heartily out to:

Richard Barnwell, B.A. (Hons) (Cantab) M.Eng (Cantab)

Lucy Fielding, B.A. (Hons) (Cantab) M.Eng (Cantab)

Richard Hall, B.A. (Hons) (Cantab) M.Eng (Cantab)

Laura Hughes, B.A. (Hons) (Cantab) M.Eng (Cantab)

Anthony Law, B.A. (Hons) (Cantab) M.Eng (Cantab)

Hannah McMillan, B.A. (Hons) (Cantab) M.Eng (Cantab)

Michael Probyn, B.A. (Hons) (Cantab) M.Eng (Cantab)

Evan Scouros, B.A. (Hons) (Cantab) M.Eng (Cantab)

Jonathan Smith, B.A. (Hons) (Cantab) M.Eng (Cantab)

Kento Taoka, B.A. (Hons) (Cantab) M.Eng (Cantab)

Chao Yu, B.A. (Hons) (Cantab) M.Eng (Cantab)

All M.Eng year presentations have now been completed, marking the end of four tough years at CUED. Everyone else finishes in the coming week…and then we won’t have any excuse not to spend all our time in the Hopkinson, will we, guys?

Guys?

All the M.Eng project reports have been handed in, after a gargantuan effort by all concerned. Celebrations were had en masse as 25% of Cambridge University Department of Engineering ended up at Wetherspoons for several hours…and then clubbing at Cindies.

You’d think after all those all-nighters and lack of food we might be slightly in need of rest, but no.

We ask all blog readers to please pray for Hannah’s project, which, due to a terrible oversight, was not written with 1.5-line spacing, and did not include a risk assessment review. All further donations to Friends of CUER will include 10% towards upgrading the cardboard box she will be living in for the next five years as a result of this.

While work ramps up on the manufacture of Bethany, behind-the-scenes preparations have begun for the next academic year. During 2009-10 team captains Pip Walters and Prem Sohal will lead the development of CUER’s next solar car for the 2011 Global Green Challenge. 4^th-year Masters projects have been arranged in the last week and twenty projects are now being advertised. This is a big step up from the eleven projects used to design Bethany and the five Affinity projects.

Team Manager Pip - already rehearsing her "Don't mess with me" face, which Anthony has so far failed to master.

Technical Director Prem - getting slightly carried away with ideas for next year's chassis materials.

Extra projects in areas including Computational Fluid Dynamics, control systems, vehicle dynamics and design optimisation will allow next year’s team to develop a much more innovative solar car and do further research into some preliminary concepts proposed this year. We’re delighted to welcome some new academic supervisors to the project, namely Dr. Will Graham, Dr. Stewart Cant, Dr. Tim Flack, Dr. Tim Coombs, Prof. Tony Purnell, Prof. Gehan Amaratunga, Dr. Tim Wilkinson and Mr. Aylmer Johnson.

Students are now being recruited  for the 2009-10 projects and an info session with project managers and supervisors will be held at 16:00 on Monday 11^th May in Lecture Room 5.

- Anthony

Enough said. We’re off to…go and write some fourth year project reports…ugh…

Good luck to all the 3rd and 4th years who start exams tomorrow! Remember – if all else fails, just write the conservation of energy and the conservation of mass…it’s bound to be close enough…

The looming of exam season means that either our posting rate will drop dramatically, or, alternatively, will skyrocket as team members search frantically for an excuse not to do any more differential equations…

Hooray! Today begins the annual Cambridge Science Festival! Two weeks of wondrous adventures into the magical world of science. It’s not really magical at all – it’s entirely based on physical principles – but, as they say, any sufficiently advanced technology…

Do come down and explore! Highlights include the ever popular Dr Pete Wothers making things explode under the guise of chemistry, while the Naked Scientists will be patrolling the lecture theatres with a heap of fun demonstrations about…um…snot. Don’t miss the Engineering Department’s contribution, Build A Hovercraft. Always a popular attraction down at the University Centre, Dr Joy Warde’s creative outreach ideas vary from year to year. Previous forays into the world of imprecision engineering include Crane Construction and Rocket Car Design. A must-see. You might even run into some CUER-ites helping out…

For the bonus point, keep your eyes peeled for Carol Vorderman, a Cambridge engineering alumnus!