• Question: What equipment did you use? Did you use Lego?

    Asked by The BrightSpark to Ashwanth, Jeni, Mark, Natalie, Stephen on 10 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Jeni Spragg

      Jeni Spragg answered on 10 Jun 2016:

      Hi BrightSpark 🙂

      I am a researcher working in a university, so I use lots of different types of equipment in the laboratories.

      For example, we have chemical reactors that are a mini version of the reactors that might be used to produce chemicals in industry. By testing things on the little reactors, we get a better idea of the basic science that is going on inside it. For example, whether it works like we expect it to, or how we can make it work better. It’s much better to test new ideas out first on a small scale, before building something that might cost millions of pounds!

    • Photo: Mark Gowan

      Mark Gowan answered on 10 Jun 2016:

      my main tool is my laptop followed by my trusty calculator and pen and paper. I sketch most of my ideas down and I can look at them even when I am not at my desk.
      With regards to Lego, I still love playing with it. I have a Lego technics mobile crane on my desk!

    • Photo: Natalie Wride

      Natalie Wride answered on 10 Jun 2016:

      Hi Brightspark!

      I don’t use Lego but when I look back to when I was younger I was always building houses from Lego and taking them apart so maybe that’s where my fascination with Civil Engineering first began! I do however use golf balls when I’m explaining to Civil Engineering students how soils behave – I pretend the golf balls are particles and explain how they roll over each other.

      In my experiments I use lots of pieces of equipment in the laboratory so I can describe the soil, but the main one (and coolest) is called a cyclic triaxial machine which you can see pictures of on my profile. The tank the soil sample is in helps to mimic how the soil would be if it was still in the ground and the metal rod on the top moves up and down really quickly (a bit like a hammer) and hits the sample to mimic the train moving over the ground. These tests are really important – we wouldn’t want to find out the soil squishes a lot when we have real life trains with passengers driving over the ground so we use lab tests first before we build these things 🙂

    • Photo: Stephen Richardson

      Stephen Richardson answered on 11 Jun 2016:

      Like Mark, my most important piece of equipment is my laptop. I don’t need much else.
      I use lots of different software. Normal stuff like Excel and specialist design packages like Revit and Navisworks.
      Part of my research is looking at how new IT can help us make buildings more environmentally friendly.
      And yes, I did use Lego and my two boys now play with Duplo.
      Did you know that Duplo means double in Danish and Duplo bricks are exactly double the size of Lego bricks?! (Lego comes from Denmark)

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