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A 19-year old electric racing car engineer whose design triumphed in the national Greenpower race finals is using WMG’s 3D scanning expertise to build an even faster version for next year’s competition.

The Greenpower Electric Car challenge – sponsored by Siemens – supports the teaching and learning of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) at all levels of education, from primary schools through to universities. Teams of students design, build, and race single seat electric cars and compete in regional heats up and down the UK culminating in the nation finals held every year at the famous Goodwood Motor Racing Circuit.

Last year’s national final winner in the Formula 24+ category , which covers car designers between the age of 16 and 25, was Dave Cullimore from Cheltenham, who beat off stiff competition from 21 other teams from all over the UK.

Although many of his rivals made use of computer-assisted design techniques, virtual wind tunnels and the latest lightweight materials such as carbon fibre, Dave triumphed despite a more modest approach.

Chairman and Founder of WMG, Professor Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya, has been recognised by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bhubaneswar with an honorary award which was presented to him earlier this month.

Professor Lord Bhattacharyya was conferred with the degree of D.Sc. (Honoris Causa) during the 2^nd Convocation of the Institute held on 7^th September.

The award was presented to him by the Honorable President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee, who also delivered the Convocation Address at the ceremony.

Bank card and other plastic product manufacturers will have access to a powerful new technology that will help the fight against counterfeiting of their products and which can provide an additional security feature for credit cards, thanks to new technology devised by researchers at WMG at the ¹û¶³´«Ã½.

The technology will allow manufacturers to rapidly embed individual, unique and hidden individual pieces of data in each item made in large production runs of plastic products or credit cards as they are being created by injection moulding.

The researchers, led by WMG Professor Gordon Smith at the ¹û¶³´«Ã½ have just applied for patents to protect the new technology which uses the influence of a particular external force that exploits the polarity of particles and fluids, to very selectively influence those particles or a polymer fluid as a product is formed by injection moulding.

This week, WMG was pleased to welcome Mme Luo Ping, Deputy Director General of Anhui Provincial Department of Science and Technology in China.

Academic Director, Professor Richard Dashwood, welcomed Mme Luo and her party to WMG’s International Manufacturing Centre. Professor Dashwood gave the group an introductory presentation and update on the High Value Manufacturing (HVM) Catapult along with Dr Nick Mallinson (Programme Manager of WMG’s HVM Catapult). The visitors also undertook a tour of WMG’s research facilities.

A group of five Engineering students from Brazil, studying at WMG on a new Science Without Borders scholarship programme, have successfully completed their year of study with an innovative final project to develop an online community space for businesses in the creative industries.

The students were given just six weeks to design, develop and implement the platform for knowledge and resource sharing and potential commercial opportunities for those working within the creative economy. This platform will develop into the online presence for the new Creative Economy Special Interest Group.

The five students were studying in the UK as part of the . The initiative was established by the Brazilian government in order to develop stronger links between the UK and Brazil. It aims to send 10,000 Brazilian students to study in the UK over the next four years.

The Associate Parliamentary Manufacturing Group visited WMG on Wednesday (21 August) to hold a roundtable discussion with manufacturing leaders as part of its first Parliamentary Inquiry into the industrial culture and competitiveness of manufacturing in the UK.

The Associate Parliamentary Manufacturing Group (APMG) group, which is led by Chris White MP (Conservative) and Jonathan Reynolds MP (Labour), aims to examine how Government and industry can work together to achieve a resilient and world-beating manufacturing sector coming out of recession. The APMG aims to look at how Government, industry, and business support structures interact with the manufacturing sector to drive growth.

Professor Lord Bhattacharyya was pleased to welcome Stephen Tetlow, Chief Executive of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), to WMG earlier this week.

Mr Tetlow met with Lord Bhattacharyya during his visit and discussed the key priorities for the engineering profession and industry. The discussions also focused on a deepening of the already highly successful relationship between WMG and the IMechE, which has led to a number of innovations in the industry, such as the .

The Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) has been wowed this month by the ‘Leonardo da Vinci: Mechanics of Man’ exhibition; and 3D printing from the ¹û¶³´«Ã½ has created one of the big talking points.

Collaborative work between WMG and ¹û¶³´«Ã½ Medical School created translucent 3D plastinations that use Leonardo Da Vinci’s original drawings of the human anatomy. The exhibition, which runs until 10 November 2013, sees the drawings, which are over 500 years old, side by side with plastinations, 3D scans and a translucent 3D heart.

The heart was generated by transferring an MRI image into a STereoLithography (STL) file. The software then slices this STL file into layers that can be 3D printed by jetting a liquid polymer layer-by-layer, which is instantaneously solidified through the use of ultraviolet light.

The first took place in Barcelona at the end of July (27-29 July) bringing together educators, researchers and developers from the worldwide Scratch community to discuss and share experiences and knowledge. Margaret Low, Principal Teaching Fellow at WMG, has been part of the Organising Committee and Programme Committee for the conference and a number of staff and students from the ¹û¶³´«Ã½ led sessions across the days.

At the European conference, students from the ¹û¶³´«Ã½, undertook a live demonstration of the power of Scratch. Andrew Sula, Sam Edwards and Tom Preece, student leaders of the ¹û¶³´«Ã½’s (part of ), built a dance mat and developed a game, all within five minutes, live on stage. Dr Claire Rocks from Computer Science ran a session 'The Robot Garden', a workshop where participants can program their own robot gardeners.

Jaguar Land Rover has announced a £1.4m investment, over 5 years, to create a new Chair (Professor) at the National Automotive Innovation Campus (NAIC) with WMG at the ¹û¶³´«Ã½.

The Chair will lead a world-class team which will achieve international research leadership in advanced propulsion systems. These systems will be essential to enable the UK automotive industry to embrace and robustly deploy new vehicle technologies and deliver a low carbon future.

The new Chair is part of a long- term strategic activity at NAIC that will ensure that this new research base enhances the UK’s capacity and capability in key research areas which will have a major impact on the supply chain and the wider economy.