• Question: What sort of machinery does your job include?

    Asked by petes7 to Andy, Bill, Grant, Kayleigh, Rain on 15 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Andrew Hearn

      Andrew Hearn answered on 12 Mar 2012:


      All sorts of machines actually!

      Some of them are like portable radar set ups (which are great to watch), others are more fixed like controller boxes that go under train drivers’ seats (nothing much to look at!).

      Some others are bit like consoles that go into airport control towers with large screens and way-too-many-buttons. (Nowadays they’re thankfully usually touch screens that change their layouts depending on what needs to be done, so that the operator doesn’t need to remember what all the buttons and switches are for!)

      What I do as a software engineer (after testing and debugging) is to load my executables onto microchips that are already on the test machine (a prototype to make sure that everything is OK before our factory floor makes many more of the same thing) and have a play with whatever this machine I’m writing code for to see if my stuff is doing what it is supposed to do.

      So yeah, what I do also includes getting to know the hardware, how they work and move!

    • Photo: Grant Cairnie

      Grant Cairnie answered on 12 Mar 2012:


      Cars and Engines is what I work with most of the time, and a laptop to communicate with them. We run the engines on test benches to control the speed and torque of the engine. The vehicles are then run in test chambers where we can control the ambient temperature and pressure to simulate climates from around the world…

    • Photo: Kayleigh Messer

      Kayleigh Messer answered on 13 Mar 2012:


      A computer is the only thing I use.

    • Photo: Rain Irshad

      Rain Irshad answered on 15 Mar 2012:


      More than you could list in one day. We have an outline of our labs and kit on the work website. Take a look:

      http://www.atm.ox.ac.uk/main/Facilities/index.html

    • Photo: Bill Price

      Bill Price answered on 22 Mar 2012:


      The job itself mainly involves cumputers and software for drawing, modelling, analysis and 3D coordination. we do sometimes build small physical models too.

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