Two years on

I can't believe it's almost October again. Another academic year has started and this means not only another new intake of fresh meat for the university, but one year less of my PhD. Time doesn't half fly. According to my plan I made at the end of last year, I'd have built a system and be testing it now, and then after Christmas being saving the world. I have a feeling that might not happen now though.

As not much photo-worthy has happened over the last few weeks, I've included some of my favourite photos from the last year here, ones that I've not put in any blog posts before.

An advert for Tena Men I saw in a service station toilet, it made me chuckle a little...

I have to say the work I've been doing over the last few weeks hasn't been the most exciting in the world. I've been writing a paper on the Turgo testing I had done over the June and July. The paper's been quite difficult to get on with, as there have been several gaps I've needed to fill in. Well, not gaps as such, just bits that make the paper read better. At the moment it sounds a bit like a bad GCSE science report - I did this, then I did this, then I did this. A little bit disheartening, but with a bit more work I will hopefully getting it reading a lot better.

The inside of L'Arc de Triomphe, as seen during our trip to Paris last November.

Apart from writing a paper, I've spent a lot of time reading papers. In fact I'm in the process of sorting through over 60 papers that have different methods of droop control, that can be used to help connected inverters into parallel. The problem I've found is that there are a few different methods, with several people publishing papers on each different method. Some of them have slight tweaks which makes the method different, an extra term in the equation here or there, a slightly different mathematical relationship. But I'm not really sure how many different adaptions there are to each one. So the aim of the exercise is to identify as  many different techniques as possible and record the salient points from each and then chose which ones to take forward into a model. This is going to take me a few more weeks, but I'm hoping it will be a worthwhile exercise. Fingers crossed!

Looking out to sea during our stay at the Lighthouse near Lynmouth with my church friends in January.

A birthday cake for Hannah's friend Lydia - I was quite proud of this one, as it was modelled on Lydia's cat Patch.

This month we also had our Harvest Messy Church. These are every quarter, and pretty much every time I cook, principally because it means I'm well away from kids then (slightly loose tongue + children = problem). I also actually really enjoy cooking, and rarely get a chance to cook for a large number of people. We normally cook for about 80 people, and this time we made a soup, packed full of British harvest vegetables. It was good fun, and I was surprised how many of the children actually enjoyed it. Some even came back for more. Who says children don't like good healthy food?

A white rhino we saw in Longleat Safari Park, during the joint birthday trip in March.

Today, I was invited back to Atkins, where I worked before starting my PhD. My friend there, Marie Adeyemi, was going to launch a program called Atkins Aerospace CARES, a corporate social responsibility initiative. Marie has done a fantastic job in convincing the management at Aerospace to allow this to go ahead, and even give the project a budget. They hope it will get Atkins people linking up with charities and NGOs, doing pro bono work and consultancy for them and encouraging a better team spirit in the company. Part of it is to encourage people to take sabbatical's, rather like me. I felt a bit awkward as I had left once I returned from my sabbatical year. However, it was great to see everyone there again. There were some faces I knew and some I didn't. It's strange how it sometimes feels you haven't left at all. Especially when the receptionist asked me if I had just forgotten my pass again (a rather usual occurrence for me!).

My eye, the wrinkles are really starting to show now…

Looking back, this year has been busy, and I've achieved a lot. I've presented at a conference, winning best paper in topic, I've built a small turbine and tested it, getting an amazing efficiency, I've travelled many thousands of miles including two trips to Nepal. However, time doesn't stop. I've got so much more to do in the next year, and if I don't get it done, then i'll be in real trouble. So, here's to the next year being productive, fun and memorable!

SAM

Need and Want

(This is not a normal blog post, it is just a collection of thoughts. These aren't necessarily my final opinions, so if you don't agree with any of the things I've written here, challenge me please. I'm hoping to write a few more like this over the next year, and hopefully record how the internal argument that goes on in my head evolves.)

I always remember my Mum used to say two things to me and my sisters when we were little, to teach us manners:

"What's the magic word?" (when we forgot to say please after making a demand of her)

"I want doesn't get" (when we had tantrums from not having our own way)

Both of these severely annoyed me as a kid, but I think Mum and Dad must have done a good job, as I normally remember please, thank you and don't use I want - except where I'm really lazy or grumpy (apparently it happens some times…).

Coming back from Nepal this time, I've been thinking a lot about needs and wants. What things do we actually need, and what are wants? Is it greed all the things we have in our consumerist world? I realise the irony of talking about this whilst typing the blog on my shiny MacBook, listening to music blaring out of my iPod touch and texting my friends on smartphone (yes, I can sort of multitask!).

But it was something that someone said to me when I visited Dhawa in Gorkha, he thought that the village was too developed. Too developed? Really? Does that mean that all the things they aspire to have is an 'I want' rather than a 'I need'? Dhawa is a village where the water comes from a few water taps dotted around the village, families having to collect their water in a gagri and carry them back to the houses. The national power grid had reached there in the last year, but many households couldn't afford to connect to it. Even those that did, the power is less reliable than Nepali politicians, and would cut out just as evening fell, not returning until the next day. A village where 500 children went to school, but many others didn't because their families needed them to work on the land and earn money, or couldn't afford the small amount of cash to send them to school. In my mind, Dhawa had started along a good road, they were improving their school, trying to find ways to improve the water and sanitation for the whole village, women's meetings were taking place that went across all castes, but this was by no means too developed. Surely these are not things that we want but things that we actually need. They are our basic human rights. Things like this are covered under the UN's Millennium Development Goals, and to my mind are needs not wants. So what is the difference between basic human rights, aspiration, needs and wants?

I, along with most sane people, were appalled by the rioting in London and other cities around the UK in August. I was in Nepal at the time, and was all over the news there too. Although it started out as a legitimate protest, it slowly descended to anarchy, with people seeing it as a chance to get things that they wanted - the latest phone, TV, computer or so on. To me, it was a clear indictment of our consumer driven culture, where everyone must have the newest product, the latest gadget, and have it now, not next week or next year. Again, I do recognise the hypocrisy in my own actions on several occasions. 

And this has made me think about my situation, and what are things I do that are wants, and what are needs. Where do I show the consumerism that we are all encouraged into as this will allow economic growth and make our country 'Great' again. I obviously need to eat and drink, but the chocolate and biscuits are definitely more wants, real weaknesses to me. I need some money to provide me with food, water, shelter and clothing, but do I really need as much as I have? And why do I use the brands I do - do I want to associate myself with the reputation of that brand? I sold my car almost 2 years ago, and I'd really like to get another one, but I don't really need this, it would be a nice-to-have and make my life a little bit easier. I certainly don't need to travel as much as I do, and quite often a pang of guilt hits me about my carbon footprint.

But then, it's some of these wants that actually make life worth living, not just surviving. But how you choose your wants is tricky, how can you work out what really makes you happy? Is your want because you deep down feel it would be amazing to have, or is just because all your peer group have it? And what if that has an impact on someone else? There has been a bit about this in the news recently, with the National Wellbeing Index which is an attempt by our government to measure our happiness. It really shows that what actually makes us happy are our family, friends and things you can't buy. (However, if you take MacBook, iPod or phone I'll be very sad.)

At the Small is… festival there was a lot of talk about whether our current economic system actually worked for the world we live in. I'm going to have a proper go at reading Schumacher's book, Small is beautiful and see what he had to say about the whole situation.

I would just like to finish with a thought from the Bible (1 Timothy 6:7-8):

"What did we bring into the world? Nothing! What can we take out of the world? Nothing! So then, if we have food and clothes, that should be enough for us."

SAM

Back to work again…

After a month off it's been a bit tough to get back in the swing of things. I finished most of the turbine testing before going to Nepal, so now I'm moving on to the electrical side of the project. We have decided to have a power electronic interface between the generator and the grid, so the first part is looking at how to connect inverters in parallel without any central control or stiff grid (like our National Grid). I'm finding this really quite hard, and have started at the basic electrical theory to understand what's going on. There several examples of these control systems in literature - for example here - and I'm using these to start some simulations of inverters connected together in Simulink.

Synchronising parallel connected inverters (the lines are the frequency of two different inverters)

I'm going to be using single phase inverters, as then we won't have to worry about balancing the loads across each phase, as with a three phase system. However, this leads to some problems. With three phase, there are some mathematical transforms that change the 3 sinusoidal voltages into vector quantities, which are much easier to control. With single phase, sadly there is no equivalent. However, there are some ways to get around these problems, so I've been investigating the different solutions to see which will work best.

Buckingham Palace coach

Apart from work, I've been busy and not had a weekend free really. At the end of August, Hannah and I went to see the Queen. Well, we actually we had a look around Buckingham Palace State Rooms. It was amazing, so much gold I have never seen in my life. After the wedding of the year, they had an exhibition in the Palace about the Duchess of Cambridge's dress, and displayed it. I couldn't believe how small she was, I doubt the dress would have been much wider than my thigh… There was also an amazing display of Faberge Eggs and other trinkets. I'm not normally one for jewellery or the like, but they were so intricate, it was just incredible.

Back of Buckingham Palace

We also visited the Royal Mews, where the state carriages and cars are kept. To think of the people that these cars and carriages had carried over the years was just mind-bending. For bank holiday weekend, we went to see my Mum and Dad's new bungalow that there are refurbishing. As it was a really hot and sunny weekend, my Dad had the perfect job for me - remove the insulation from the loft so the electricians could come in and look at the wiring. This was a joyous job, sweating through every pore in a suit that made me look like an Oompa Loompa from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. At the end of the day, Dad and I managed to clear all insulation - my nose wasn't the same for a few days after though - which was great, and he's now put it back in again with a load on new thicker insulation on top of it. It's going to be one toasty house - energy-saving-tastic! 

Me in the Oompa Loompa suit

The first weekend in September was the Small is… Festival run by EWB-UK and Practical Action. The name of the festival comes from the title of a book written by Practical Action's founder, E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful. It was an interesting festival, looking at different solutions to problems - energy, sanitation, cooking - through a mix of workshops, discussions, panel sessions and practical activities. Some photos from some of the sessions I attended are below (taken from the Small is… festival website).

Playing with a Solar Panel at Small is… (Photo by Nick Holmes)

Watching the charcoal burn

Listening to V3 Power talk about homemade wind turbines (Photo by Nick Holmes)

I found it quite interesting listening to a wind power debate between a manufacturer, Ampair, NGOs, social enterprises and academics. It got quite heated at some points, but I think some interesting arguments on the advantages and disadvantages of locally made equipment compared with mass manufactured certified designs came out above some of the animosity. As the man from Ampair said, they would set up a turbine factory in a developing country, like Peru, if they could be sure that an NGO wouldn't come in with free money and completely undercut them with inferior hand made products. I'm not sure who I agree with, but an interesting discussion none the less. Hannah came along with me, and I think it was quite a shock for both of us to hear some of the statistics to do with smoke inhalation from open fires, and the health problems that it causes.

Every year in September, Bristol opens all the public buildings for a day - even those normally closed. Hannah and I went on a train along the floating harbour down to the SS Great Britain, then onto the Create Centre where they have an Eco-house and a hazard awareness area for children, which we took  a tour around.

The train outside the M-Shed for Bristol Doors Open Day

Then we visited St Stephen's Church, where we booked ourselves on a jaunt up the tower. The tower looks out over the centre of Bristol, and I thought it would be quite fun to climb. The stairs were very awkward, all stone and not very large to fit my size 13 feet on, with the twisty turns. By the time I got to the top, I have to say I was quite relieved. However, my severe fear of heights kicked in and I didn't really manage to see the view!

St Stephen's Church Tower (we climbed up it, all 152 ft!)

Bell ringing in St Stephen's Church

On the way down, even more scary than on the way up as every step we felt we would slip down, we stopped off at the bell ringing level, and I had a go. I've never rung a bell before, and it was really difficult to try and get it in time.

SAM