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Engineering
skills shortage – fact or fiction? As second semester commences, the light at the end of the tunnel is in sight for those of you finishing your course this year. But what are the job prospects and what is it like within industry at the moment? There has been lots of discussion in the media and by our politicians about low unemployment and the number of government and Public Private Partnership (PPP) engineering projects currently under way or in the pipeline. Many companies and businesses are crying out, stating that they can’t find people with the necessary engineering skills or experience for the job. Therefore, surely there is a skills shortage in the Australian engineering sector, which puts (soon to be) graduate engineers in the perfect position? However, a number of engineering disciplines have been removed from the Skilled Occupation List (SOL). The government advises that the new SOL (as of 1 July 2010), which is used to help determine which overseas migrants will be granted a particular category of visa, is “a more targeted list of occupations to better meet the medium and long-term future skill needs of the Australian economy. The new SOL [is] based on advice from ‘Skills Australia’ and it [delivers] a General Skilled Migration (GSM) Program more focused on high-value skills across the professions and trades.” Current overseas students will need to be aware of the implications of the change to the SOL. For instance, robotics and mechatronics engineers as well as some types of computer engineers have been removed from the SOL. The government apparently believes that these disciplines will not be needed in the medium and long-term in Australia and that these skills are not highly valued in the profession. Or is it that the government considers that there will be enough students coming through those courses to fill the gaps? With the continued rollout of the National Broadband Network, many in the industry consider that there is a big gap between the number of people qualified to construct and install the network and the number needed to build it. So what should (soon to be) graduate engineers think – skills shortage or not? Carla Cher is chair of the Young Engineers Australia National Committee. |
YOUNG ENGINEERS ONLINE COMMUNITY Young Engineers Australia: Website | Blog |
Students present projects to industry and peers Engineering students due to graduate presented their final year projects to an audience of their community, families and potential employers during CQUniversity’s 2010 Graduating Engineers Conference (GeCon). While GeCon allows graduating engineers to present their final year projects, it also enables the engineering industry to learn more about the level of knowledge, skills, and abilities of engineering students for recruitment purposes, and assist those still studying or considering studying engineering. At GeCon this year was John Holland operations manager David Abbott who was interviewing some of the engineering students at GeCon. "I am very impressed by this year's crop. I have seen a number of them on co-op placement working with us,” he said. One of the students presenting their project was CQUniversity civil engineering student Stuart Harvey. His project, undertaken in conjunction with Main Roads, involved the upgrade of the Bruce Highway between Boundary Road and Olive Street in Rockhampton. "The project involved analysing each intersection in its current state and under future traffic flows and determining what upgrades were required. I then designed and produced technical drawings for the highway and the intersections," he said. “I also performed an integrated transport study in the area looking at the integration of public transport, cycling paths and walking paths in an attempt to reduce the traffic in the area.” Rockhampton Regional Council recently employed Harvey in its transport department and he looks forward to working on similar projects. Other projects presented at GeCon included:
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Students race to the UK Monash University engineering students will battle it out at the Silverstone racing circuit this month, flying to the UK and pitting their single-seat Formula 1-style race car they’ve built from scratch against 85 student motorsport teams from around the world in a four-day competition. The Formula Student Association of Engineers competition is one of 10 competitions held annually on four continents. Each of the competitions are almost identical, consisting of three static and five dynamic autocross style events to allow teams to compare their performance. Combined, 450 teams compete worldwide. This year’s Monash Motorsports team consists of 29 members who have been involved in all aspects of the race car’s design, manufacture, and testing. Students must build each car from the ground up every year, volunteering thousands of hours of work to be competitive. Second year aerospace engineering student Simon Bicknell said: "We set some really fast times at the local competition in December so we're confident we can cut it with the best teams in the world and have a successful competition." Bicknell and his colleagues are supported by Monash University and have enlisted over 50 sponsors from a range of industries to assist the team. Like a professional Formula 1 team, the students must learn the networking and time and resource management skills required of a professional race team on top of the demands of building the race car. The team is now making the final preparations to ensure that everything runs smoothly and that they are prepared to deal with any hiccups along the way. "We have a thoroughly tested, reliable package that has the performance to succeed. The hard work has been done and we're ready to improve on our number seven world ranking," Bicknell said.  Students from the Monash Motorsports team … We can cut it with the best teams in the world. |
Australia makes it to World Cup final – for robots The University of New South Wales has placed second in an international World Cup-style soccer match designed for robots – the 2010 RoboCup. The six-day competition, held in Singapore last month, pitted three-robot teams against one another in automated soccer matches. This year, 500 teams from 40 countries fought for the cup. Of the three Australian teams to enter (the University of Technology Sydney and the University of Newcastle also took to the field), UNSW’s rUNSWift team was the only one to qualify past the preliminary rounds. RUNSWift competed in the standard platform league of the competition, which dictates that every team compete with identical near-60cm tall robots, allowing the teams to focus on software as opposed to hardware development. The robots are required to function autonomously, and no external interference beyond the referee is permitted. In the past, these matches were enacted by four-legged robo-dogs. However, advances in robotics technology have allowed the league to upgrade to two-legged humanoid designs. “There have been great advances in bipedal robots over the last few years and this will continue,” said associate professor and rUNSWift team leader Maurice Pagnucco. “We will have smooth and stable walks in less than 20 years.” RUNSWift defeated Carnegie-Mellon University 6-0 in the semi-finals, but lost 6-1 against Germany’s University of Bremen in the grand final, which ironically echoes the recent performance of the Socceroos against Germany in the World Cup. The rUNSWift team, consisting of four UNSW academics, five undergraduate students and two assistants, were disappointed but still proud of their efforts. “We had some extremely talented students working on the team,” said Pagnucco. The team’s success in making it to the grand final was a result of many hours of coding and testing since late 2009. “As a software engineering exercise, the team produced 30,000 to 40,000 lines of code,” Pagnucco said. Established in 1997, the vision of the RoboCup competition is to create a team of humanoid robots that, by 2050, can defeat the World Cup champion team in a sanctioned FIFA soccer match. Since then, there have been several branches to the RoboCup, including RoboCup Rescue. Another UNSW team, named CASualty, recently won the Best Autonomous Robot award for its disaster response capabilities, and went on to win the Mobility Challenge designed to measure a robot’s ability to navigate rough terrain. A video of rUNSWift scoring against a competitor is available online.  Socceroo-bots: at play in the 2010 RoboCup. |
Resource scholarships awarded for excellence The University of Queensland (UQ), in conjunction with the Queensland Resources Council (QRC), has awarded scholarships worth up to $40,000 to engineering students Peter Stephan and Ian Desouza. The UQ Excellence Scholarship, valued at $6000 per year for up to four years, recognises students who during their senior studies have demonstrated outstanding academic excellence and/or exceptional leadership achievements and/or community service. The QRC scholarship provides an additional $4000 per year to the UQ Excellence Scholarship and the opportunity for the holder to join the QRC Scholarship ambassador program. The program enables them to attend resources sector networking events and conferences and gain assistance in vacation work placement, and further media opportunities. Stephan made the decision to become an engineer after recognising the impact engineering has in different aspects of ordinary life. “We are living in the information and digital age and I see myself enjoying a career where I’m working with and developing exciting, new technologies,” he said. While he is undecided in which discipline he wants to specialise, Stephan is aiming towards the resources sector. “When people think about someone who works in the industry, an image of a miner covered in coaldust probably comes to mind, but the range of careers on offer is far, far wider,” he said. Desouza is aiming towards a career in the energy sector. He is also completing a science degree. “Around the beginning of Year 12 I started to like the idea of being a petroleum engineer,” he said. “I wish to make a significant contribution to the development of the industry and help develop the way we harness and use energy.” Stephan and Desouza will graduate in 2013 and 2014, respectively. |
Scholarship for railway engineering conference The Railway Technical Society of Australasia (RTSA), in conjunction with Faiveley Transport, is providing scholarship opportunities for 50 engineering students interested or studying in a field related to the rail industry to attend the biennial Conference on Railway Engineering (CORE) in Wellington, New Zealand in September. Under the theme of Rail – Rejuvenation & Renaissance, the conference aims to highlight the reemergence of rail as a solution for sustainable, high capacity infrastructure to support economic development around the world. It will provide students with the opportunity to increase their technical knowledge and learn more about the different areas of rail including track, signalling and electrification; rolling stock; planning; policy and regulations; asset management; maintenance; structures; and rail projects. The scholarship includes passes for both days of the conference; attendance at a technical tour; lunch, morning and afternoon teas during the conference/tour; social and networking sessions; and an attendance certificate for students’ CV portfolios. Applications should be made online at the CORE2010 website and include a personal statement relevant to rail as well as supporting information on existing academic studies and any relevant work experience. Applications close Sunday 25 July, with successful applicants notified by Monday 9 August. The scholarships do not include an allowance for accommodation or travel. Video highlights from the last CORE conference, CORE2008, are available online. |
Computational modelling tools on the rise Employers’ demand for graduates with experience with computational modelling tools is continuing to grow, with academic institutions lagging behind, according to Mathworks managing director Andrew Clay. Speaking at the Matlab and Simulink Academic Tour in Sydney at the University of NSW earlier this month, he said the engineering industry is increasing its use of computational modelling tools across all disciplines and more employers are placing increased value on previous experience with tools such as Matlab when advertising for new job openings. In a November 2009 study “Controls Curriculum Survey: A CSS Outreach Task Force Report” conducted by the IEEE Control Systems Society, employers were asked what they considered essential and academic institutes were asked what they included in their curriculum. The study found that what industry thought to be important or essential in relation to mathematical models of physical systems was being included in university curriculums at a much lower rate. 83.9% of employers surveyed considered control-oriented models for system design to be important or essential, while 66.2% of universities surveyed included it in their curriculum. A further 14.3% of employers considered it useful. Similarly, 67% of employers surveyed placed simulation models for system verification or product development as important or essential, while 48.5% of universities surveyed included it in their curriculum. A further 27.3% of employers considered it useful. “There’s a significant difference between what industry considers essential, important and useful and what’s currently being taught to graduates,” Clay said. The wider adoption of these tools in the engineering industry is thought to be due to the availability of high-level programming tools and the need to manage information that is available from an increasing amount of sources. He said that organisations were aware of the value of information, but were often challenged in determining what to do with that information now that it was available and what questions they should be asking to get meaningful results. Clay believes that the engineering industry has changed its approach to the design process, opting for greater use of simulation and modelling tools to develop appropriate solutions to problems, for example when using an external organisation for a part of a project. |