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“Achieving the ‘White Board to Self-Drive Car’ project in
12 weeks, eight WIT Electronic Engineering students have
proven that anything is possible, if you keep moving forward.
They have just completed a project never before attempted
within WIT, in 12 weeks and it worked. One of the coolest
sounds we have ever heard on a project was listening to the
car increasing revs as its gets ready to go,” said lecturer Jason
Berry, the Lead Engineer in WIT’s Applied Robotics Lab (ARL)
lectures on the Higher Cert in Electronics, BEng in Electronics,
BSc in Applied Computing, Masters in Electronic Engineering
and Post Graduate Diploma in Business in Innovation Practice.
“The project is the bread and butter of what any engineer is
all about – figuring stuff out for yourself. Third year is a big
transition for our students into the world of self =-learning.”
Head of the School of Engineering at WIT, Ken Thomas
outlined the prospects for students of electronic engineering.
“Electronic Engineers are in high demand and short supply in
Ireland. We in WIT want more Electronics students to equip
them with the cutting-edge knowledge and skills that will
allow them be very successful – and have great fun along the
way with projects like Robo Car.”
The team have since recorded a test drive for IrishTV’s
Waterford County Matters show and a video of the initial test
drive is also available on
www.wit.ie/selfdrivecar2016and
WIT social media accounts.
Berry’s advice for school leavers and college applicants
impressed by this project and who want to know if they would
be suited a future in electronic engineering to get in contact
with WIT staff.
“People can get in touch through the individual course pages.
You can come in and have a look around at WIT, there is
always a warm welcome in WIT Applied Robotics Lab.”
There are also ways of learning about electronics from home.
“Get yourself an arduino board and play with it right now,
they are very cheap and there are loads of cool projects on
the web. If you like the projects, who knows you might be
onto something.”
Previous graduates have been employed by Intel, Honeywell,
Ericsson, Dell, Analog Devices, Bausch & Lomb, EMC.
Career opportunities for graduates of this course exist in
various areas such as telecommunications, software and
computer industry, research and development, electronic
and IC design, production, test/maintenance, and control/
automation departments.
Located at 5,000 meter altitude at the Atacama Desert in
Chile, ALMA, Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, the
world’s largest radio observatory, is literally pushing Cisco®
technology to the limits.
Having 66 antennas almost 15 meters tall – the eyes of ALMA –
operating day and night to capture the signals of the universe
to explain how stars and planets were formed is not an easy
task. Low temperatures, high winds and snow, low humidity,
dust, and a lack of oxygen are tough challenges that the ALMA
staff and its network infrastructure have to endure.
To deal with one of the most extreme environments of the planet,
it’s required a robust and reliable digital network architecture
to take all the data from the antennas to the brain of ALMA,
a supercomputer capable of processing the information from
the ALMA antennas in real-time and transforming it into one
cohesive data stream.
Cisco solutions are deeply integrated within ALMA operations,
making Cisco an end-to-end solution provider helping ALMA,
the world’s largest observatory, to fulfill its mission: unveiling
the mysteries of the Universe.
“ALMA is, in simple words, a factory that produces scientific
ALMA Observatory pushing high Cisco technology
data and delivers them to the astronomical community, but
for this supply chain to work, we need a reliable backbone,
where we can support this process, and that is where Cisco
plays a fundamental role”, said Jorge Ibsen, Director of the
Computing Department of ALMA. “For over 10 years we’ve
been working with Cisco solutions and have always given us
cutting edge technology, which is what ALMA needs to generate
large amounts of reusable scientific data. We currently produce
about 200 terabyte (TB) TB per year, and that volume of data
is expected to increase significantly over the following years in
operations”.
“For a unique operation such as Alma to work, it is essential
that the infrastructure operates in extreme conditions, but
with the same advanced features and capabilities as if they
were in a traditional office environment. One of the secrets
to Cisco’s success is our ability to customize our solutions to
meet the needs in various industries, their special requirements
and unique conditions”, explained Mariana Portela, account
manager at Cisco Chile.
Unveiling the Mysteries of the Universe
For that purpose, ALMA is using Cisco Catalyst 6500 Core
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