October Update

Well here we are and October has gone!! so time to update you all as to what’s been going on since my last blog.

Earlier in the month the Executive Board held it’s annual strategy day in London , the aim of which was to review the progress of growth for the Institution over the past year to learn from any issues raised by the members and to produce a strategy going forward for the next 5 years. More will follow on this as the year progresses and decisions are taken, I will keep you all informed.

Following on from that the CEO and I attended the IET Presidents Address held at the Royal Institution the home of The Charles Marques Lecture with over 200 of their members. Barry Brooks, the new President of the IET, used his Inaugural lecture to remind their members of some of the many engineers who have been the leaders and innovators and  who have made a difference to the world, and how their example needs to be followed by today’s engineers and technicians. Along with a familiar call for volunteers to support the IET and announcements of further events we also had the winners of the recent Lego League in attendance

For the first time in the competition’s history, a UK team was crowned Champions at the FIRST World Festival in the USA.

Over 20,000 teams take part in FIRST LEGO League globally. The teams have a multitude of tasks to complete each season, and are mentored by volunteers.

The team, Untitled 1, and their robot called The Beast, won the Champion’s Award  in St.Louis, MO, USA, beating 79 other teams taking part in the festival. Over 21,000 teams from around the world had taken part in the past year’s competition.

 

Team members Freya Alder, Tom Mason, Dani Workman, Rafi Borries Gruber, Joe Mason, Max Workman and Claudia Moorhouse are all students at two Bath schools – Ralph Allen and Kind Edward’s.

The team came up with a revolutionary doorbell fingerprint scanner, a project which took more than 300 hours to complete that impressed the judges at the event. The team also had to build and program their own LEGO MINDSTORMS robot, a task which they spent more than 500 hours on.

A huge congratulations to all of them from the ILP.

Many contacts were made at the event and I hope to see some collaborative working with other Institutions happening over the next few months.

On 23^rd October the Executive Board met with the Vice Presidents as a follow up from the strategy day. Further ideas were put forward with regard to improving communications and structure. A great meeting and very productive; the ideas now need to be moved forward and implemented.

Finally I attended the L&SE evening event on the 24^th Oct. Fantastic trip and a pleasure to catch up with people The landmarks of London looked amazing lit up in all their splendour. Well done Eddie and the committee for sorting out a great event. I was unable to attend the technical session due to the day job but kept up to date on twitter, the feedback was again very positive and so encouraging that so many people attended the session for the day and found the papers interesting.

My thanks must go to my employer Skanska (IS) for supporting me with the time required to fulfil the duties as your President without this full support it would be extremely difficult.

Finally I am now on twitter you can follow me  @mjrugby1968
Until next time
Mark