Open Day 2011 (Tuesday 7 June 2011)
The day's programme of events ran as follows (also available in PDF format):
During the day undergraduate project work was on view in Thom Building Lecture Room 3. A competition was held for the best displays (in various categories), with prizes totalling £2300 in value contributed by Laing O'Rourke, Ricardos, GlaxoSmithKline and Sony Broadcast & Professional, arranged by the Society of Oxford University Engineers. The competition judges were all graduates of the Department from recent years, now engineers in industry; as usual the standard was very high, with 14 entries of which nine won prizes.
There were also opportunities during the afternoon to see the final stages of some one-week Coursework Modules undertaken by the second year students, e.g. on Mobile Robots and Mechanical CAD.
In the packed Thom Building Lecture Room 1 (relayed to an equally packed Lecture Room 2), there were three lectures during the afternoon. The first two talks described work in progress in the Department: Dr Richard Willden spoke about tidal stream energy, and Dr Gari Clifford presented some of his work on health in resource-poor regions. The Lubbock Lecture at 4.45pm was given by Professor Thomas Hofmann, Director of Engineering, Google Zurich. Professor Hofmann talked on the topic "Google - 1 billion searches a day and counting", a lecture that was thought-provoking and highly entertaining, and delivered using the web via a Google Docs-based presentation.
- Dr Richard Willden : Tidal stream energy - the role of efficiency
- Dr Gari Clifford : Resource-constrained digital health care
- The 37th Maurice Lubbock Memorial Lecture
Professor Thomas Hofmann : Google - 1 billion searches a day and counting
The day ended with a buffet supper in the Holder Common Room.
A biographical note about Professor Hofmann is available in PDF format.