My Final Year Project for University

I'm studying electrical engineering and electronics at university and, like most other engineering subjects we undertake a project in the final year (or in my case final 2 years as it is a 4 year course).  One of the popular ways of showing off the projects is to make a blog and write about your progress - I had to help a friend set up a blog the other day as I am considered 'an expert'.

Last year I worked in a group to make an augmented reality phone application with the following blog:

http://arlivuni.blogspot.co.uk/

which was mostly kept up-to-date but a lot was filled in at the end of the project.

This year, however, I am working on my own and developing a radio telescope similar to NASA's Radio Jove Project which they run with schools.  The project was run last year so I am taking over from where they left off and then hopefully improving it but at the moment it seems like there is a lot to do and I will have to be very disciplined with my work.  The blog I will be taking over soon is:

http://liverpoolradioastronomy.blogspot.co.uk/

I can't wait to get started on this project!  On my 11th birthday (I think it was) I visited the radio telescope at the Jodrell Bank Observatory - I wanted to be an astronomer when I was growing up so getting to make a telescope is rather exciting.   Today, my supervisor asked me if I have an optical telescope - of course I do! so I'm hoping my Mum knows where our telescope is.  If I do one of the possible options for developing the project it could mean staying up all night at uni (hopefully not on my own) and observing pulsars.

Astronomy Lecture

We got an email sent around at work a few weeks ago about a public lecture about the Hubble Space Telescope.  I've always been interested in astronomy and, as one of my friends at work said, there would at least be some pretty pictures.


So last Thursday a small group of us made the journey after work into Liverpool for the lecture.  We turned up very early for the lecture and managed to find a pub that had nice food not too far from where it was being held.

The lecture itself was really interesting and talked about the advances that have been made in astronomy with the help of the Hubble Telescope in the 20 years it has been in operation.  Of course there were some amazing photos that Hubble has taken too.


If you want to read more about it you can find it here.  That page also has a link to a video of the entire lecture.