September 21st 2010

    EAME 10 at the Hethel Engineering Centre, Hethel

On a hot sunny day over 20 members of the NES toured the EAME10 exhibition/trade fair sponsored by and held at the Hethel Engineering Centre. This event is turning out to be one of the premier engineering events of the year in East Anglia let alone Norfolk!

This year had even more exhibitors than previous years with an even broader spectrum of engineering disciplines ranging from a new lightweight biplane to state of the art precision NMC fabricating tools. Robotics was much in evidence as was green technologies applicable to the motor industry. Lotus, much as expected had a significant presence.

As part of its remit, the Council of the NES attempts to encourage budding young engineers. To this end, Council decided this year to award a prize to the most outstanding student working at the Hethel Engineering Centre(HEC) throughout the summer vacation period. After some deliberation the HEC nominated Ian Pagano for the award.

Derek Hillyard, the Engineering Manager at the HEC, reported to Council that -
  "Ian Pagano is a foundation degree student from Easton College studying Sustainable Engineering. His course tutor, Richard Catchpole, suggested the HEC as a possible venue for both a Summer work placement and for 'the work based learning' that forms part of his course. HEC recognised Ian as someone with talent and enthusiasm for engineering and were delighted to offer him work during the summer vacation.

During his time at HEC Ian not only has significantly developed his CAD skills but he has also worked on various client projects; any one of which will potentially meet his course project requirement.

One of Ian's projects has been to adapt a bicycle to include an innovative propulsion mechanism. As part of the necessary design process, Ian has used HEC's facilities for 3D laser scanning to reverse engineer the frame and Direct Digital manufacturing for both visualisation and form-fit function analysis."

Ian is pictured receiving his award from President Mike Vincent at HEC's annual Exhibition of Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering (EAME). Also pictured with Ian and the President are Richard Catchpole(far right), Derek Hillyard(second from right) and several Council Members.