WISE Summer School 2015
June 21st – Arrival
Students and staff arrived in the Springfield Country Hotel where for the WISE Summer School 2015. The hotel has a number of facilities that were utilized to the fullest extent possible on this first evening. The hotel’s gym, swimming pool, tennis court and sauna room all provided a good way to end a weekend and start the next busy week!
The Summer School centers around a Hackathon challenge; a design contest between small groups of students. Other activities during the week include guest talks, research proposal presentations and site visits. Read more in the following sections!
June 22nd – Hackathon introduction
Prof. Dragan Savic (WISE CDT Director; University of Exeter) introduced the event and presented the students with their week-long Hackathon challenge. The students’ aim is to develop an innovative approach to deal with an actual water issue of their own choosing. An introductory talk by South West Water has given some direction to the students’ ideas but the students remain free in the choice of problem they will attempt to tackle.
To get the creative juices flowing, the introduction talk was followed by a relaxation exercise. Calming and with a focus on breathing, this was a very different experience from more ”traditional” ways of starting a new group project. After this, the students divided into their preassigned groups (mixing people from different universities) and started their work.
Work on the Hackathon continued throughout the day. Problem definitions became steadily more defined and there was a clear divergence in scope and type of problem tackled. The WISE staff and partners present provided a steady stream of input and feedback on the problem definitions and group processes in general.
Prof. Roger Falconer (WISE CDT Co-Director; Cardiff University) gave an after-dinner talk detailing his career and presenting an introduction to the Poole harbour area. Poole harbour is one of the site visits planned for later in the week and prof. Falconer’s talk provided some educational background for this.
June 23rd – site visits
Tuesday morning was spent working on the Hackathon for students and in meetings for the WISE CDT staff and partners. Late morning marked the departure for two site visits (located in and near the town of Poole), lead by Dr. Tom Arnot (WISE CDT Co-Director; University of Bath) and Prof. Roger Falconer.
First stop was the water side, where the group took a boat tour around the harbour. This presented the opportunity to explore several interesting features of the harbour and to place the theoretical knowledge from Prof. Falconer’s lecture in the context of the site itself. The weather was excellent which allowed the group to use the open deck and have a great view during the tour.
Some excitement arose in the course of the day, due to the release of the students’ exam results. As expected everyone passed the year.
Second stop was Poole Waste Water Treatment Works. Following ever-present health & safety rules, everyone got handed a fluorescent jacket to prepare for a tour around the treatment works. The tour combined nicely with the lectures on waste water treatment processes earlier in the year, giving another look at theory in practice. The treatment plant also provides a good example of a site growing over the years, as a result of technological advances and changes in demand. The tour was concluded with a talk by Dan Green (Wessex Water).
The after-dinner entertainment was provided by Dr. Patrick Reed (Cornell University) who gave a short overview of his personal career and an engaging talk about “discovering trade-offs, vulnerabilities and stakeholder dependencies in water resources systems”.
June 24th – research proposal presentations
Wednesday morning marked an important moment for the students. Before a panel of supervisors, Programme Management Group members, Advisory Board members and fellow students, each student had the opportunity to present their research proposals. These are not yet the finished proposals, but the collective experience of the panel gave the students a great opportunity to get feedback on their work so far.
The presentations were given 15 minutes each, with half the time dedicated to explanation by the student and half the time for questions from the panel. Varying degrees of nervousness could be seen but, unhindered by this, all students managed to make the most of this feedback opportunity.
The students arranged two leisure activities after lunch, to alleviate the pressure brought on by the Hackathon challenge and the proposal presentations. Both students and academics joined in for a game of rounders outside the hotel. The weather again being excellent, this turned out to be quite a hot and sweaty activity so the afternoon program was slightly delayed for a pool and shower break.
After the break the group participated in a quiz focused on the students’ interaction in the past year. Questions covered a wide range of subjects such as hobbies, favourite foods, rankings in tidiness and other things, with some decent embarrassing anecdotes mixed in for comedy value.
The after-dinner event this day were short 1-minute presentations by academic representatives of each of the four universities, summarizing their students’ research proposals for the benefit of the attending WISE CDT industry partners.
June 25th – dinner and awards ceremony
Most of Thursday was for the students spent on finishing their Hackathon work. The deadline for these ideas was set at 6PM with the prospect of dinner with academics and industry partners afterwards.
The student groups progressed very differently in their Hackathon solutions. Some where already on the finishing touches of the graphical aspects of their work, while others where more focused on fleshing out the technical aspects of their ideas. However, hard work was needed and seen with all groups and everyone managed to deliver their product on time.
During lunch, Dr. Jon Wicks (CH2M HILL) gave a talk on his professional progress through academia and industry. He expanded further on some of the challenges he faces in his current line of work, as an expert in water management and flood modelling.
This day saw the most elaborate dinner of the Summer School, having students, academics, Programme Management Group members, Advisory Board members and academic partners all dine together.
Dinner also included a small awards ceremony with awards handed out for ‘Best academic achievement’ (Wouter Knoben), ‘Best research proposal’ (Josie Ashe) and students’ choice ‘Best student contribution to the CDT’ (Wouter Knoben).
June 26th – Hackathon presentations
The four student groups presented their Hackathon idea on Friday morning. The ideas were presented to a panel of judges, with none of the other students present. After due deliberation the panel awarded the first prize to Josie Ashe, Barnaby Dobson, Laurence Hawker and Jonathan King for their idea “Tap for taps”.
They presented an idea for an app for tourists who are in a need of water-related services (taps to fill a bottle, toilets, bathing water quality, etc.) but unsure where to find these. The jury judged their idea to be the most realistic and financially viable.
Departure
The Hackathon award also marked the end of the WISE CDT Summer School 2015. Students, WISE CDT staff and partners expressed their enjoyment of the Summer School and the opportunities it provided. See you for Summer School 2016!
