UWTSD Applied Computing Blog

This afternoon has seen another fine batch of project boards handed in at the School Office by our final year students.  Excellent work, everyone!

• Dr Tyra Oseng-Rees, Faculty of Art and Design also called Swansea College of Art.  She spoke on “Recycled Glass applied to Construction”.  The talk was an interdisciplinary showcase between different Schools and Faculties at UWTSD involving undergraduate student projects and research active staff from art and design, architect, manufacturing, construction and engineering.

  
•  Mr. Arya Sedigh PhD student From School of Applied Computing, Computer Networks & Communications Research Group. His talk was  on a non-intrusive method to evaluate and monitor the performance of voice communications over Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks.

  

  Thank you to Tyra and Arya for their very interesting talks today. The slides will shortly be available on Moodle under “Faculty Lunchtime Research Seminars” – contact computing@uwtsd.ac.uk if you are unable to access them.

Gower College students have been with us today for a taster day in various aspects of the courses we run. Today they have been learning about networking, ethical hacking and games design (algorithms and Unity).

Here are some pictures of the student in action:

We’ve had a Masterclass today with Keith Reeves from NHS about how IT Services are managed within the NHS. This is a big challenge given the size and scope of the organisation, with over 72,000 staff, 7 Health Boards and 3 Trusts, and 442 GP Practices. The NHS use the ITIL framework. The slides will be uploaded to Moodle (Faculty Lunchtime Research Seminars) shortly.

The School of Applied Computing has got together with UNSW, its counterpart down-under, to offer a limited number of paid student placements to undergraduate final years, Masters and PhD students this summer.

The work experience placements will last between 3 and 12 months, and offer a stipend of $500 per week. Start date is flexible.

You’ll have the opportunity to take part in projects such as Enterprise Multi-Data Source System Integration, Data Management, Business Intelligence or Voice aided Mobile Data Entry for Automated Logistics and Supply Chain Management

INTERESTED? APPLY NOW!

For further details contact Dr Carlene Campbell on carlene.campbell@uwtsd.ac.uk

One of the School’s PhD students, Archie Watt, featured in the monthly Faculty Lunchtime Research Seminar yesterday. He was presenting his work on Monitoring Coastal Erosion, a continuation of the ASTEC project undertaken in the school a few years ago. An array of wireless sensors will return data on a regular basis to monitor changes in the coast. Coastal erosion is a hot topic for the UK, with several high-profile collapses in the last few years.

We also had a talk from Mr Steve Winkley of Tata Steel who told us about ways in which Tata Steel, and industry in general, are hoping to modernise with reference to Big Data and other technological developments.

The slides from both talks are available on Moodle under “Faculty Lunchtime Research Seminars” for anyone who missed it, or wants to have another look. Thank you, Archie and Steve!

On March 10th 2017, we made our second departmental visit to the National Museum of Computing. It was an early start from Swansea to get to Milton Keynes by 10.30am.

At The National Museum of Computing, we had some introductory talks with an overview of old tech that some of us remembered better than others!

Then we were off for a tour of the facilities. Here we are looking at the Harwell Dekatron Computer (later renamed the WITCH). This is the oldest surviving computer in existence (as opposed to a replica) dating from 1947.

We also saw the famous Colossus machine, which was able to find the keys for ciphers during the Second World War. It remained top secret until the 1970s.

We had a tour of more relatively recent tech – here’s some computers from the 1970s and the 1980s with the Apple Lisa at the top:

Who can resist a bit of retro gaming?

After lunch, we used the BBC Micro computer lab (1980s) to do a bit of programming in BASIC – a snake game:

And finally an attempt to get a computer to pass the Turing Test by entering friendly phrases for a computer to produce in answers to questions posed to it:

We all had a great day out and learnt a lot about the history of Computing which has come so far in such a relatively short time. Thank you so much to everyone at The National Museum of Computing and thank you Carlene for organising the trip!

The School of Applied Computing were pleased to welcome back Graduate Daniel Hawkes this lunchtime to give a Masterclass for undergraduate students on the challenges facing change and data management. Daniel studied the Business Information Technology degree as a part time student whilst he was also working and graduated from UWTSD in 2016. He is now a Complex Analysis Manager for BT, looking at big data and business intelligence.

Daniel said: “I was already doing a technical role within BT but I needed more business knowledge and theory. BSc Business Information Technology helps you from a corporate perspective because it has a nice balance between data and business. I would not be here without doing both the degree and my job. They went hand-in-hand. The degree sets you up for the future because it gives you a rounded understanding of how businesses operate. The lecturers at the School of Applied Computing are fantastic – I would recommend the course, the university, everything.”

Sam Derby, who graduated in 2014, has been telling us what he’s doing these days while working for McAfee.

Q. What is your Name?
Samuel Derby

Q. What was your University course?
BEng(Hons) Computer Systems and Electronics

Q. What is your job title and role?
Software Quality Engineer at Intel Security (McAfee). My role splits between two main distinctions: Projects and Operations. Operations are helping build and test our daily antivirus releases (DAT). Projects are varied, but usually have the end goal of making our product releases more efficient and our testing more effective.

Q. Could you briefly describe the organisation you work for?
Intel Security (McAfee) is one of the World-leading antivirus software developers. We create solutions for software and technical security against malware, ransomware and other emerging digital threats. Originally housed within Intel, McAfee, is a 7500 strong team across the World.

Q. Which skills learned at University are helpful to you in your job?
I do a lot a bug fixes and troubleshooting, although the code languages I learnt in University were different, the methodical and systematic approach to code debugging I was taught, are applicable to any language and I still use those methods today.
Also, and surprisingly to me, giving presentations at University helped a lot. At work, we regularly host demos of code changes, new products and testing methods. Proposing these changes to a very skilled team can be daunting, but I’m far more confident doing it now having been grilled by lecturers in Q&A sessions.

Q. Do you have a typical day and how would you describe it?
Project Days are standard 9-5 and usually start with a 10-15mins project sync stand up. Everyone in the team says what they did yesterday, what they are doing today and if they are on target for deadlines. The day will be mixed then between meetings and code/software development. Any changes that are proposed have a rigorous testing cycle and approval process. This means creating test plans and release criteria and completion dates. Along with submitting Requests for Change to our Chance Advisory Board.
Operations shifts are 1 day a week and 1 weekend a month. This requires starting at 6am and finishing at 2pm, to better align with our team in India and meaning the antivirus update can go out to customers earlier.

Q. What aspects of your job do you enjoy most?
I enjoy the challenge and the variety. To say every day is different would be inaccurate, but the projects you work on are never the same. This means learning myriad processes and numerous coding languages. Also, this job offers a level of respect I’ve not experienced in any other company. Constantly you are asked for your opinion and it is considered on any change that affects the team, regardless of your position or seniority.

Q. Do you have any advice for students who would like to start a career?
Don’t add things to the CV that make you out to be the perfect candidate, because no one is. If you’re under qualified for the role, accept it and look for another job. Go for roles that offer challenge, but are still inside your remit and skills and you’ll make a much stronger first impression.

Q. A Quote that sums up your time at the University?
“You’re lucky you’re good at presentations, ‘cos you’re not too good at Electronics!”

Brilliant! Still makes me laugh to this day, and he was right, I was awful at Electronics. I’ve still got the burns marks from soldering irons to prove it(!)