ECS News

The sixteenth Electronics New Zealand Conference (ENZCon 2009) was recently held at the University of Otago. The papers presented broadly covered the areas of electronics, signal and image processing, RF-design, FPGA processing and antennas.

Victoria University's Faculty of Engineering students made an impact, with Carl Benton winning the best presentation prize for his joint paper on: The Comparison of Analogue and Digital One-Cycle Control Feedback Methods around the Output Stage in a Digital Audio Power Amplifier (C.D. Benton, D.A. Carnegie and P. Gaynor). Ben Drayton (Victoria University Honours students starting a PhD next year) was awarded the best novice presenter prize for:  Life Sign Detection on a Disposable Robotic Platform as Part of a Three-Tier System for Urban Search and Rescue Operations (B.M.M. Drayton, and D.A. Carnegie).

Professor Dale Carnegie said, “overall the conference was a good opportunity for staff and students in this field to share technological research that could future benefit New Zealand’s economy. The Conference highlighted the depth and quality of the research coming out of the Faculty of Engineering at Victoria University”.

Victoria University will offer a Master of Engineering next year, beginning in February.

The programme will enable students to undertake a research project in electronics, computer systems networking, software engineering or a combination of these. It will cater for students with an appropriate Honours degree. John Hine, Head of Victoria's School of Engineering and Computer Science and Faculty of Engineering, said that the Master's was a great option for new researchers.

“The Engineering programme at Victoria is unique in that it integrates electronics and software development.“

Victoria has the leading software engineering group in the country and a superb programme in mechatronics; essentially working with robots. We've got the largest fleet of mobile robots in New Zealand.

“Our researchers are also part of the international Honeynet project and are doing fascinating things to improve Internet security. “

The Master's is an opportunity to study a particular topic in greater depth. It will be of interest to both engineering and science graduates as well as students from related areas like industrial design.

“Companies involved in research and development could also work with students from the School on collaborative Master's projects.”

Potential Master's students should visit the Engineering website to find a supervisor they may wish to do research with: http://www.victoria.ac.nz/engineering For more information please view the Postgraduate prospectus page http://ecs.victoria.ac.nz/Main/ProspectivePostgraduates, or contact Professor John Hine (Dean, Faculty of Engineering) John.Hine@ecs.vuw.ac.nz.

On the 4th September Massey and Victoria engineering and computer science students came together in the annual IEEE New Zealand Central Section (http://ewh.ieee.org/r10/nzc/) postgraduate presentation event, held at Victoria University in the Old Government Buildings. Fifteen students presented to an audience of their peers, staff from Massey and Victoria and members from the IEEE and IET. The presentations were of an excellent standard covering a range from electronics, communication systems and networking to Artificial Intelligence and Software Engineering and it showed many synergies exist between the Massey and Victoria research groups.

It was difficult to pick the winners, but after an agonising discussion the overall winner was Harry Jones (Victoria) who talked about his honours project in channel sounding with software defined radio. In second place Ayesha Hakim (Massey) presented on a reliable hybrid technique for human face detection. As runners-up Adrian Jongenelen (Victoria) talked about compact real-time range imaging systems and Keith Cassell (Victoria) told us about clustering techniques to improve the maintainability of object oriented classes.

Many thanks to all who took part and we look forward to next years event!

With names like Praying Muntaz, Predator, Icarus and Optimal Prime, the stage was set for an exciting match at the Annual Lego Competition. Monday night gave students enrolled in ECSE430 Advanced Mechatronic Engineering II the opportunity to design, construct and programme autonomous robots that not only had to work but compete against each other. The aim of the competition was to score the most points by having the robots locate and physically pick up a puck then deliver it to a donut shaped goal. Pucks varied in value depending upon how hard they were to locate. Maximum points were scored if the robots deposited the puck in the donut centre as opposed to the raised outer surface. As the Robots were required to operate completely independently of humans, points were deducted if a competitor touched their robot.

Harry Jones and Ben Drayton with Predator proved from the very start that they were contenders to be reckoned with. Predator lived up to his (or her) name and preyed upon the pucks (and other contenders) scoring well in the first few rounds. The final round resulted in a play off between Predator and Praying Muntaz designed by Vincent Fletcher and Patrick Thomson. The photograph show the results, a victorious Vincent Fletcher and Patrick Thomson celebrating their win and the A+.

On Thursday 6th August Victoria University were the hosts for the New Zealand Computer Society Evening with Industry 2009. The McClaurin foyer and lecture theatre MCLT101 were packed with 200 students, NZCS members and employer representatives for the annual “Evening with Industry”. Students from the Wellington region tertiary institutions came in by bus, mini bus, car and foot to hear from eight recent graduates about their experiences in the ICT industry and to mix and mingle with employers such as Deloittes, KPMG and Orion Health. The speakers came from a range of Wellington ICT employers, including BNZ, Catalyst IT, Code to Customer, Intergen, KPMG, ProjectX, Provoke and TradeMe and included John Clegg who spoke about Summer of Code 2009.

To hear more about the event, go to Twitter: http://twitter.com/search?q=%23ewi

Recently Andy Linton, a teaching fellow at the Faculty of Engineering, took part in the 5th conference and educational workshop of the Pacific Network Operators Group (PacNOG). Held in Tahiti, the 5 day conference provided an important forum for service providers in the Pacific Network community to meet and discuss current issues as well as receive technical training. The workshops at the conferences are deliberately designed to strengthen technical expertise by training people and organisations. In return the participants are expected to return home and teach others in their country what they have learnt at the PacNOG workshops.

As PacNOG aims to build relationships among individual and institutional contacts in the Pacific region, a key outcome of the organisation is the building of relationships with peers/colleagues in the region. Andy, who is an instructor and active member of PacNOG, has been involved in technical knowledge transfer in the Pacific Region for the pass 12 years and views PacNOG as an excellent opportunity for people in the Pacific region to share and develop technical expertise - "People in New Zealand understand the tyranny of distance, which is even more of a challenge in the South Pacific region. Geographically these island nations cover huge areas, which result in scattered and sparse populations. By bringing people together they are able to identify similar experiences and share innovative solutions."

This year's conference highlighted many of the challenges and issues facing internet development in the Pacific region. As John Crain, Chief Technical Officer ICANN, stated in his keynote address - "Everyday more than a Billion people rely on the Internet to conduct aspects of their daily life. Those who use the Internet and those of us who operate the networks need to be more aware of the risks". While the workshops addressed a range of challenges, this year the conference focused on current best practices in security and the importance of well engineered router and server infrastructure.

Relationship building is also an important aim of PacNOG and as Andy states," it was really good to see the sharing of knowledge and the building of relationships, which continues well after the conference finishes. The Fijian contingent stayed for a few days after the conference to work with their Tahitian counterparts and this working together is what the organisation is about". PacNOG also receives support from a number of institutions in the Pacific region. Victoria University provided Andy's time, while InternetNZ paid for his travel and accommodation. The next meeting this November in Fiji, will be supported by the Internet Society (http://www.isoc.org/ ) and InternetNZ (http://www.internetnz.net.nz/).

For further information check out: http://www.pacnog.org/

On Wednesday 10 June 2009 the Faculty of Engineering hosted approximately 70 people from the Wellington engineering and computer industry.

The aim of the event was to further develop relationships in the community by showcasing the new Faculty of Engineering. As well as tours of the new space on the second floor of Cotton, staff and students displayed a wide range of interesting research projects. The evening gave staff, students and industry the opportunity to interact and discuss developments in the engineering and computer science field.

In the first photograph, Master's student Vipul Delwadia is demonstrating his software for remote control of mobile applications.

Peter Andreae (Pondy) explains a learning agent: the agent watches what is happening in a world (a kitchen with a tap, sink etc) and constructs mental models of how the world works in order to predict and plan.

The Mechatronics Group, headed by Professor Dale Carnegie, has developed a fleet of mobile robots capable of autonomous operation over a wide variety of different terrains. Here Dale is explaining the importance of maneuverability for rescue robots in disaster environments. The goal is to provide these robots with the ability to learn and adapt, and eventually be able to operate autonomously (without human assistance).

The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) is one of the world’s leading professional societies for the engineering and technology community with more than 150,000 members in 127 countries. With offices in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific, IET provides a global knowledge network to facilitate the exchange of ideas and promote the positive role of science, engineering and technology in the world. It also provides a forum for specialist groups and makes available to members an extensive range of publications.

The IET Wellington Local Network Committee is an active participant of the IET worldwide community and has developed strong relationships with engineering education providers in the region.

To give recognition and support to students who are studying engineering and technology, IET gives out a number of yearly awards. Recently, Victoria University student Arya Reais-Parsi was presented with an IET Award for Best Second Year Engineering Student 2008. On hand to present the award, and to outline the role of IET, was Brian McGlinchy, who has been an active member of IET for 15 years. As Brian outlined in his presentation to third year engineering students, as well as sponsoring undergraduate students with engineering prizes, IET can provide:

• Events and technical visits.
• Networking at local level.
• International speakers as well as monthly seminars that cover a wide range of topical issues.
• 4th Year student presentations - a local competition called Present Around The World where the local winner could go to a final in Australia and possibly on to the UK.

If you are interested in knowing more about IET check out their web site: http://www.theiet.org

For Wellington’s activities go to: http://www.theiet.org/local/australasia/nz/wellington/index.cfm

During the mid-trimester break in April, seven students from ECS (Keith Cassell, Adam Clarke, Rashina Hoda, Ben Palmer, Kourosh Neshatian, Kok-Lim.Yau, and Craig Anslow) attended the New Zealand Computer Science Research Students Conference (NZCSRSC) at Auckland University. The Conference, which is in its 7th year, is organised and run by postgraduate students, and aims to promote and strengthen the nationwide community of ICT research students.

Key note speakers included former Victoria University masters student Alan Blackwell, who gave an insight into Interdisciplinary Design Research for Interactive Technology. As Alan, who is now at Cambridge University, states on his home page "I only have one big research question, but I attack it from a lot of different angles. The question is representation. How do people make, see and use things that carry meaning? The angles from which I attack my question include various ways in which representations are applied (including design processes, interacting with technology, computer programming, visualisation), various methods by which I collect research data (including controlled experiments, prototype construction, ethnographic observation), and the theoretical perspectives of various academic disciplines (including computer science, cognitive psychology, engineering, architecture, music, anthropology)" (http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~afb21/research.html ).

Another key note speaker, J.P. Lewis from Weta Digital, used the movie King Kong to illustrate Why Academic Research Matters to Weta Digital. Specifically the presentation looked at the graphic techniques used to recreate the city of New York in 1920 and the realistic skin, fur, eyes and movement of Kong.

A core component of the annual Conference are the presentations and posters from students. This year 25 graduates studying at New Zealand universities (and 7 from ECS) gave presentations and as in previous years the standard of talks and posters were of high quality. A range of workshops also gave students the opportunity to build on their research skills and topics ranged from thesis writing, time management, presentation skills, the publication game, to discussions on careers in research and the industry in general.

The conference not only gave student researchers an understanding of what others are doing, but also gave them the opportunity to interact with others who are motivated and passionate about their work. But it wasn't all work, highlights of the conference included the Endace opening dinner and the Orion Health social night that involved a boat cruise on Auckland harbour.

Feedback from the students who attended was positive - "The organisers did a fantastic job in planning the conference which ran very smoothly. We are looking forward to next years conference".

The winner of the School of Engineering and Computer Science contest is 13 year old Tariq Kader. Tariq is in year 9 at Wellington College and one of his favourite subjects is mathematics. He also enjoys computers and as this photograph illustrates he is very happy at receiving his prize - an Aluminium MacBook supplied by Student IT based at the Victoria University, Kelburn Parade. Tariq won his prize after entering an on-line contest advertised at the recent Wellington Armageddon show. While on campus, Tariq also received a quick tour of the new School of Engineering and Computer Science, and was shown the Honeynet Project and the visualisation display OptIPortal.

Dr Ian Welch, who was on-hand to give Tariq some pointers on his new prize, states, "we hope that the new MacBook helps to further develop Tariq interest in computer science, and with his strong maths interest, Tariq is developing an educational foundation that will stand him in good stead for future university study in engineering and computer science."

And it sounds like the School may see Tariq in the near future. "I have always wanted a computer," said Tariq. "And more specifically, an Apple Macbook. I would avidly look at all the features it came with and imagine how it would be to have one. So when I heard that I had won a new Macbook, I could hardly believe it. I was also taken on a tour of the School of Engineering and Computer Science and learned about the amazing things people were doing with computers, getting information and even building robots. Even before this tour I was interested with computers and technology, and seeing those exciting things happening in there has given me confidence in my curiosity. I hope to continue my interest with computers and engineering, and hopefully take it to a university level in the future; and my new Macbook should help me get there."