Banquet and Program Videos (Trailers and Competition Submission)

Special thanks to Shems Belhout, creator of the EIL 2019 video and trailer and to Ben Sergent for the superb TA work in ECE 301. The short EIL 2019 trailer is available at https://youtu.be/wTq3MR8VgUU and the complete EIL 2019 trailer can be found at https://youtu.be/Y4igATl6W_U.  The final banquet video is available at https://youtu.be/vSfaK8xZa5Q and the final Director's Cut is available at https://youtu.be/05P-W3MEiuo.  A group photo from the banquet dinner at Brown's of Covent Garden on Friday, June 28 is also provided.  Emily Brown (IES Special Programs Coordinator) was our special guest.  Shems Belhout has also submitted a film for an IES-sponsored film competition and you can view this impressive production at https://youtu.be/Ic1cV3WqvrQ.  In August, Shems was informed that his film has made the semifinals of the competition.  Congrats Shems! Here is the title and brief synoposis of the film:

Title: Searching London: The Lost Time Machine

Synopsis: In college, Shems forgot what inspired him to be a film director, and instead pursue engineering. To find an answer, he travels to London to study engineering, but things take a turn when he encounters a time traveler in a blue police box named the Doctor who looks like him? Shems must help the Doctor find his lost time machine all while exploring the birthplace of engineering, London. Can Shems locate a lost time machine, will he find the next step in his career, or even pass his engineering classes? Explore London with the Doctor and Shems as they race against time to find the time machine and his future!

Congratulations EIL 2019 alumni!

Special thanks to our corporate and alumni sponsors of the EIL 2019 program: Cisco, International Paper, Jewelry Television,  Rebecca Collins, and the Larry and Yosiko Shell Global Initiative.

London Eye

On Wednesday evening (June 26), the EIL students joined Profs. Berry and Parsons to experience the London Eye - a cantilevered observation wheel on the South Bank of the River Thames in London. It is Europe's tallest cantilevered observation wheel, is the most popular paid tourist attraction in the United Kingdom with over 3.75 million visitors annually, and has made many appearances in popular culture.  The structure is 135 metres (443 ft) tall and the wheel has a diameter of 120 metres (394 ft).

Crosswalk Lab in ECE 301 using an Arduino Kit

A new addition to ECE 301 in EIL this summer was an assignment to build a prototype crosswalk emulator using an Arduino kit.  Most of the crosswalks in London do not have sound to alert pedestrians that the time window for cross the street is abruptly closing.  This lab assignment, designed by Ben Sergent (CompEng major) allowed the students in ECE 301 to get a real feel for electrical components and learn how microcontrollers generally work with digital circuitry. The functioning prototype shown below was completed by seven groups of three with each group finishing a stage of the project and handing off their progress to the next group. Each stage took  roughly two hours to complete (outside of the regular lab/problem solving session at IES).  The short video included was part of the demonstration of the crosswalk emulator to Prof. Parsons on Wednesday morning (June 26).  Click here to see the complete lab description of each of the seven stages and group assignments.

Royal Institution and Michael Faraday Laboratory

On Monday evening, June 24, 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 Discourse lecture entitled Cracking Ancient Codes: Understanding Early Writing by Irving Finkel (British Museum) and Andrew Robinson (renowned author and former literary editor of The Times Higher Education Supplement).

 Irving Finkel through his work on cuneiform shared uncovered amazing secrets from over five thousand years ago, including the story behind Noah’s ark. Andrew Robinson then presented the revolutionary life of Jean-François Champollion, the volatile French scholar who decoded Egyptian hieroglyphs using the Rosetta Stone and thereby doubled the historical timespan of Egypt, with crucial help from the researches of a former professor of physics at the Royal Institution: the polymathic Thomas Young, sometimes known as ‘The Last Man Who Knew Everything’.

This 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.

Bletchley Park

On a beautiful Friday, June 21, the EIL students along with Profs. Berry and Parsons and Kimberley Aparisio from IES visited Bletchley Park (north of London). Bletchley Park is where Alan Turing and his colleagues in Hut 8 broke the (naval) Enigma code during World War II. The students witnessed demonstrations of working Bombe, Tunny, Harwell Dekatron, 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.  Nicknamed WITCH for Wolverhampton Instrument for Teaching Computing from Harwell, the Harwell Dekatron at the National Museum of Computing (NMC) is considered the oldest electronic computer that is still operational. Our guide (Sheridan) ant the other volunteers at the NMC were excellent.  The students utilized part of their lunch break on the jungle gym equipment and playing outdoor chess (with human chess pieces).

Thursday Farmer's Market at UCL

Every Thursday local grocers and vendors set up booths with a large variety of food, bakery items, and fresh vegetables in a courtyard on the campus of the University College of London (UCL). EIL students are big fans of the Market as illustrated below on Thursday, June 20, 2019.

Thermodynamics Lab

All EIL students take ECE 301 (Circuits) and ME 331 (Thermodynamics) here in London and earn 6 credit hours of technical elective credits toward their major.  Here are a few photos taken during the afternoon Thermodynamics lab period on Thursday, June 13.  Students are assigned problems (in groups) to work out on the board and one of group members must explain their solution strategy to the entire class and Prof. Parsons.

Greenwich

On Wednesday, June 12, the EIL students along with Profs. Berry and Parsons took a Thames Clipper boat up the Thames River to Greenwich. At Greenwich, they visited the Cutty Sark ship, Royal Maritime Museum, the Queen's House, and the Royal Observatory.  In the Time and Longitude Gallery of the  Flamsteed House at the Royal Observatory, students were able to see Harrison's sea clocks from the eighteenth century.  Harrison's H4 clock is considered the most important timekeeper ever made. It is the machine that helped solve the problem of keeping accurate time at sea and finally won Harrison huge rewards from the Board of Longitude and the British Government.  As is customary,  group photos were taken at the Prime Meridian (Latitude 0) and with Southeast London as the background.  A new addition to the itinerary this year was a short bus ride to the Thames Barrier, just north of the Greenwich Town Centre. Operated by the Environment Agency of the British government, the Thames Barrier is one of the largest movable flood barriers in the world.