Industrial Design: Excursion to Sensor City
On the 21st of November 2018, a group of Industrial Design students made the short trip down to Sensor City to attend a tour of the facilities hosted by Dr Joanne Phoenix and Jaime Mora-Fernandez.
Sensor City is a collaboration between the University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University and is a flagship University Enterprise Zone. They enable industry and academic partners in a range of sectors to translate their innovative sensor concepts into commercially viable solutions. From their purpose-built base in Liverpoo,l they offer existing companies and budding entrepreneurs the technical expertise, business support and international platform needed to collaborate, fund and promote sensor solutions to a global market. They are working intelligently, creatively and collaboratively to develop a connected sensor community and are making Liverpool a global hub for sensor technologies.
On their tour, the students were introduced to some of the latest laboratory equipment, such as the LPKF Laser Direct Structure machine, a unique resource in the UK. Students were interested and keen to understand the different methods, which could be provided by Sensor City to design, make, test and validate novel sensor concepts.
Not only did the trip give the students a rich understanding of the importance and potential of Sensor City to businesses, but recent graduate Jaime gave an insight into adapting from university life into a career in Industrial Design.
Many students came away from the trip with a new perspective of potential career paths, with options they may not have considered before.