Engineering Design Show now a focal point for the sector
In 'Field of Dreams', the film in which, for those who don't know, the 'build it and they will come' reference is taken, Kevin Costner builds a baseball park in his maize field and thereby attracts a legendary baseball team. While the Engineering Design Show might not be quite as emotive, it does have similarities.
While we are all aware of the legendary stars of engineering from the UK's past – a disproportionately strong team in global terms – we often ignore the fact that we have a healthy crop of world-leading design engineers operating very successfully now, often for globally respected companies. Perhaps one reason they (or should that be 'you') do go under the radar is that it has proved notoriously difficult to get engineers away from their place of work. Is that down to a shortage of time, work pressures, lack of interest in going out, too much information already on the internet......or has industry lacked the kind of event that engineers really want?
The organiser, Findlay Media, surveyed engineers and found all of the above to be true, but it was the last one that held sway. So, armed with the wish list from readers of Eureka, the first Engineering Design Show was launched. It was built – and you came. 1500 of you. The attraction of industry leading suppliers to form an exhibitor base, supplemented by a stellar cast list presenting at the conferences and some meaty technical workshops, proved to be the right formula to get engineers to converge on Coventry's Rocoh Arena for the inaugural event.
The winning formula was expanded in 2013 with the addition of the Electronics Design Show, and 3100 engineers came. A further addition of the Embedded Design Show saw attendance figures exceed 4000 – an increase of 28% - as doors closed on the 2014 event on October 23rd.
Ed Tranter, executive director of Findlay Media, said of the event: "When we launched the Show three years ago it was with the aim of providing a dedicated exhibition for the design engineering sector. The support we have received from the industry has been fantastic and enabled us to build a hugely successful event that we can all be very proud of. This year's Show has proved to be an absolute triumph and I want thank everyone involved for making it such a success."
Although the event formula appears to be right, it still requires the quality of the content to be maintained – perhaps momentum in this respect, as well as in numbers of visitors, is gradually building from one year to the next. So, possibly in part as a result of an excellent conference programme last year as well as the content of this year's schedule, over 1700 conference sessions were booked in advance.
The Eureka conferences represent the glamour end of the engineering design. The most popular session in terms of pre-registrations was the excellent presentation 'Bringing a Formula One car to life' given by Al Peasland, Head of Technical Partnerships, Infiniti Red Bull Racing. With 186 pre-registrants and others joining on the day, this was one of several sessions that became standing room only.
Peasland described how his multi-disciplinary team develops and identifies new technologies and integrates them into a Formula 1 car. As this year has proved in F1, every team is constantly moving forward, and Peasand described how innovation was an ongoing process at Red Bull.
Other presentations covered some of the most demanding and exciting environments in the UK today. Other automotive contributions came from Bob Bell, technical director of Mercedes AMG Petronas, who talked about 'Design integration in modern Formula 1', and Elliot Hawkins and John Roberts of Potenza Technology who described 'EV-Blue' – an electric car with an iPad driven control system. In this vehicle most of the wiring is replaced by wireless systems. Meanwhile Millbrook's Peter Stoker and John Notman-Watt talked about vehicle design using a platform-based methodology.
Those who like their engines bigger were treated to the Rolls Royce view of why quality needs to be designed in from the start by Mick Carlisle, while those who prefer no engines at all (why do so many engineers like cycling?) were enthralled by Demitris Katsanis' presentation about designing Team GB's winning Olympic bikes. Describing the impact of a single 'weight-reduced' component as possibly only accounting for the difference of 2/100ths of a second over the course of an entire race, he put it into perspective by saying that the difference between gold and silver may only be 1/100th of a second.
Another burgeoning sector in the UK is medical and engineers interested in this market were not disappointed. Simon Calvert of Siemens Magnet Technology discussed the design of the 3 Tesla MRI magnet and how cutting edge moleculat imaging is improving medical diagnostics.
Philip Canner from Team Consulting talked about the life-saving OrganOx project – a liver perfusion system – that won the 2013 Grand Prix a the British Engineering Excellence Awards.
Protecting rather than fixing the human body was the focus of Chris Davies of Morgan Advanced Materials, as he described some of the new material solutions used to protect provide body armour for soldiers – the balance between weight and protection being the vital thing here. Advanced materials have become part of the engineering battleground and composites are at the forefront. Marcus Royle of Gurit talked through some of the advances being made.
Rich Walker of Shadow Robot described how robotics is progressing giving the example of the 'dexterous hand', and Dr Joseph Darlington of the manufacturing Technology Centre took a look at virtual reality. Far from just being concerned with manufacturing, the MTC believes that using virtual reality in product design can give a competitive advantage.
And what conference programme in the technology sector would be complete without a look at the Internet of Things? Lynn Baranowski of Cambridge Consultants gave some practical advice on how to turn 'smart machines into brilliant machines' in an industrial environment.
So while the conference sessions may provide the inspiration, it can be the EDS workshops that provide the information and 1500 delegates registered for their places in advance. In recognition of the value of these sessions, the Institute of Engineering Designers had CPD Certified these sessions, so delegates were issued with certificates in order that they can be be used for CPD assessment.
Most popular of the workshops was the presentation from Materialise titled: 'Break free from design limitations 3D printing'. While there were only 70 seats in the workshop theatres, they did at least have the advantage of being open on two sides to the exhibition, so creating extra capacity.
The other vital ingredient of course was the 200 or so exhibitors used up all of the 6000sqm of floorspace available at the Ricoh Arena. Judging by the badge scanning data, having the complementary electronics sister shows did provide a useful resource for design engineers looking for a greater understanding of electronics. Indeed electronics itself has so many specialisms that suppliers are used to 'filling in the gaps' where advice on a new subject is needed, and this added to the sense of this being a technical event for engineers, rather than simply a marketplace for suppliers.
Tranter concluded: "It really was a packed two days. We wanted to fire the imagination of design engineers and at the same time provide solid information that will help them on whatever projects they are working on right now. From all the feedback we have got, EDS has delivered that experience."