Birthday Celebrations

Between the lectures and laboratory sessions on Thursday, June 29, the EIL students and faculty celebrated the birthdays of three students that occurred during the program.

Circuits Lab in the Chapman Room

EIL students have laboratory sessions in the afternoons each weekday when there are no program excursions.  The ECE 301 (Circuits) laboratory session is held each day in the Chapman Room at the IES Center. As depicted in the photos below, students are occasionally asked to present their solutions to homework assignments.

Westminster Abbey (Take Two)

On Sunday morning, June 25, nine more EIL students joined me in attending a service at Westminster Abbey.  This time, we had tea and cakes prior to the Eucharist service which included communion and the confirmation of several young men into the Church of England.  Our favorite server, Salvatore, took care of us at the Abbey Cafe. 

London Water & Steam Museum

On Saturday, June 24, the EIL students along with Profs. Berry and Parsons visited the London Museum of Water and Steam (formerly Kew Bridge Steam Museum) at Kew Bridge. They saw live demos of 19th century steam engines (boilers heated by natural gas as opposed to coal).  They observed the operation of the Easton & Amos Engine, the James "Dancers End" Engine, the James Simpson "Waddon" Engine and the the 1838 Maudslay Steam Engine. The group photo, with each member sporting the EIL program T-shirt, was taken in front of the Waddon Engine.  Before leaving the Museum the students competed in a bubble blowing contest.  This was the third excursion in three days and the students welcomed a day off before they return to lectures and labs on Monday at the IES Center.

Bletchley Park

On Friday, June 23, the EIL students along with Profs. Berry and Parsons and Natalie Crown from IES visited Bletchley Park (north of London). Bletchley Park is where Alan Turing and his colleagues broke the Enigma code during World War II.  The students witnessed demonstrations of working Bombe, Tunny, and Colossus machines and were given the opportunity to operate an actual Enigma machine. The Colossus was the world's first electric digital computer that was programmable. The Colossus computers were developed to help in the cryptanalysis of the Hitler's Lorenz cipher.  Our guides (Frank, Philip, and John) were excellent and Professor Berry was given three more vacuum tubes from the working Colossus machine (at the National Museum of Computing) for the display case in the Min Kao Building on the UT campus.

PIzza Lunch (provided by IES)

After morning lectures on Thursday, June 22, the EIL students and faculty were treated to a pizza lunch by the IES staff.  Zosia Rutkowska, Simon Causton, and John Ockney (IES Director) joined the group for lunch.

Royal Institution (Faraday Laboratory)

On Thursday evening, June 22, the EIL Students along with Profs. Berry and Parsons visited the Royal Institution (Michael Faraday Museum) near Green Park. In addition to visiting Faraday's Laboratory, the students attended a (Friday) Discourse lecture entitled "Machine Morality: Robot Ethics in the Twenty-first Century" by Drs. Alan WInfield (Bristol Robotics Laboratory) and Raja Chatila (University Pierre and Marie Curie, Paris). That lecture was given in the Royal institution's lecture hall, where Michael Faraday started the Christmas lectures in 1825. The RI today is known for its science education programs, a continuation of the tradition of scientific lectures as enlightened entertainment. The Friday Night Discourses were formal affairs with the audience in evening dress and the speaker by tradition had to start and stop his address as the auditorium clock struck consecutive hours. J. J. Thomson announced the discovery of the electron in his 1897 lecture in this room. The Christmas Lecture program, begun by Michael Faraday and continuing through today, is the oldest continuous science education program for young people.

Trouping the Colours

The annual celebration of the Queen's Birthday, called Trouping the Colours, took place on a Saturday, June 17.   The pageantry involves the Queen's personal troops, the Household Division, on Horse Guards Parade, with Her Majesty the Queen herself attending and taking the salute. Over 1400 officers and men are on parade, together with two hundred horses; over four hundred musicians from ten bands and corps of drums march and play as one.  The parade route extends from Buckingham Palace along The Mall to Horse Guards Parade, Whitehall and back again.  A few of the EIL students remaining in London for their three-day free weekend were able to witness this event and see the Queen and Prince Phillip riding in their carriage down the Mall.  A few of them are captured in some of the photos below.