What I Did This Summer
By: Kevin Jones
Senior Consultant, Embedded Systems
22nd August 2018
The title might lead you to believe this blog is about a holiday to some far away sunny paradise. That post will have to wait for another day; instead, this article is about my recent experiences working with students.
The Next Generation
Plextek has always invested time in energising the next generation of engineers. Each year we employ undergraduate engineering students who join the consultancy for a summer placement that typically lasts twelve weeks. One of this year’s undergraduates worked with Plextek’s software group and I was offered the opportunity to oversee his placement. He was tasked with investigating a novel method to count moving vehicles in real time using audio signals. His work in this project has been successful and is still being used as a technology and capability demonstrator.
Work Experience
This summer Plextek also invited two sixth form students to join us for a work experience week. They spent time with staff from various departments to gain an overview of how the many roles collaborate to form a successful consultancy. This included one day spent with me giving them the opportunity to learn about embedded software and software development processes.
The world has moved on since I was at sixth form so I found myself contemplating the best method to introduce these younger students to my professional world. In the end, I settled on using two identical Arduino development boards, two prototyping boards (“breadboards”), a handful of resistors/LEDs/switches and a couple of laptops.
We started the session discussing the simple inputs and outputs that can be implemented with these basic components then moved on to illuminating LEDs, flashing LEDs and using the switches to control the LEDs. Along the way, we covered coding standards, static analysis tools, documentation tools, integer storage size and how microprocessors represent whole negative numbers.
After lunch, we completed a short consultancy exercise starting from requirements through to implementation, bug fixing, testing, requirements clarification and enhancement proposals. The sixth formers covered a lot of ground in one day and I hope they found at least some of it rewarding!
Professional Development
Yet the undergraduate and the sixth form students weren’t the only people to learn from their placements. Plextek is committed to personal and professional staff development and there were plenty of new skills that I either learned or improved upon too.
From a personal point of view, I learned many new soft-management skills such as leadership, mentorship and communication to a different demographic. From a professional point of view, I hope I passed on plenty of useful tips that will help them flourish in their future careers. I’m rarely in a teaching role and this summer has helped me to better understand and appreciate the great work undertaken by all teachers preparing young adults for their future careers. Who knows; maybe some of the summer placement students might opt for the same path I chose and become a chartered engineer.
Kevin joined Plextek in 2008 and first worked on 3G telecommunications projects. He is a Chartered Engineer and is a member of the Institute of Engineering Technology. His recent projects include AIMS (the embedded software and the Android application) and a variety of high volume, low-cost consumer devices.
The title might lead you to believe this blog is about a holiday to some far away sunny paradise. That post will have to wait for another day; instead, this article is about my recent experiences working with students.
The Next Generation
Plextek has always invested time in energising the next generation of engineers. Each year we employ undergraduate engineering students who join the consultancy for a summer placement that typically lasts twelve weeks. One of this year’s undergraduates worked with Plextek’s software group and I was offered the opportunity to oversee his placement. He was tasked with investigating a novel method to count moving vehicles in real time using audio signals. His work in this project has been successful and is still being used as a technology and capability demonstrator.
Work Experience
This summer Plextek also invited two sixth form students to join us for a work experience week. They spent time with staff from various departments to gain an overview of how the many roles collaborate to form a successful consultancy. This included one day spent with me giving them the opportunity to learn about embedded software and software development processes.
The world has moved on since I was at sixth form so I found myself contemplating the best method to introduce these younger students to my professional world. In the end, I settled on using two identical Arduino development boards, two prototyping boards (“breadboards”), a handful of resistors/LEDs/switches and a couple of laptops.
We started the session discussing the simple inputs and outputs that can be implemented with these basic components then moved on to illuminating LEDs, flashing LEDs and using the switches to control the LEDs. Along the way, we covered coding standards, static analysis tools, documentation tools, integer storage size and how microprocessors represent whole negative numbers.
After lunch, we completed a short consultancy exercise starting from requirements through to implementation, bug fixing, testing, requirements clarification and enhancement proposals. The sixth formers covered a lot of ground in one day and I hope they found at least some of it rewarding!
Professional Development
Yet the undergraduate and the sixth form students weren’t the only people to learn from their placements. Plextek is committed to personal and professional staff development and there were plenty of new skills that I either learned or improved upon too.
From a personal point of view, I learned many new soft-management skills such as leadership, mentorship and communication to a different demographic. From a professional point of view, I hope I passed on plenty of useful tips that will help them flourish in their future careers. I’m rarely in a teaching role and this summer has helped me to better understand and appreciate the great work undertaken by all teachers preparing young adults for their future careers. Who knows; maybe some of the summer placement students might opt for the same path I chose and become a chartered engineer.
Kevin joined Plextek in 2008 and first worked on 3G telecommunications projects. He is a Chartered Engineer and is a member of the Institute of Engineering Technology. His recent projects include AIMS (the embedded software and the Android application) and a variety of high volume, low-cost consumer devices.
