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Swinburne alumni experience a trip of a lifetime
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Three Swinburne Alumni
in front of the Keck 10m telescope in Hawaii |
In late October 2008, four Swinburne alumni joined Professor Duncan Forbes in Hawaii to experience first-hand observations with the world's largest optical telescope.
The alumni tour began with a trip to the Summit of Mauna Kea and the Keck Telescope. Mauna Kea is just over 4000m tall and above 40 per cent of the Earth's atmosphere. When the tour reached the Summit, everyone was gasping for breath - not due to lack of oxygen, but because of the awesome site of the twin Keck telescope domes.
The alumni were treated to a personal tour of the facility by a Keck staff member and got to see themselves reflected in the giant 10m mirror of the Keck telescope. Time on the Keck telescope is very precious, worth about one dollar per second in terms of its operation cost, so the alumni were lucky to see the data coming in on the computer screens in real-time. The Swinburne astronomers and alumni also enjoyed a traditional `Mai Tai' cocktail at the beach and watched the nearest star - the sun - set.
Their trip, along with Trevor Barry, will be featured in an upcoming episode of ABC's 'Australian Story'. In Trevor's words:
"This has been an experience I will treasure for the rest of my life...This is what dreams are made of."
Building sustainability at Swinburne
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| Swinburne's new sustainability building at Wantirna |
The new National Centre for Sustainability and Environmental Design building was officially opened on 14 October by the Victorian Minister for Skills and Workforce Participation, Jacinta Allan.
Located at Swinburne’s Wantirna campus, the newly constructed $10 million building was specifically designed and built to demonstrate many environmentally sustainable features. These include a 90,000 litre water tank for harvesting rainwater, solar panels, and natural ventilation and lighting systems. Reclaimed materials were also used in the building and in the construction process.
“The new building houses the National Centre for Sustainability and provides it with the ideal base to carry out its work developing sustainable practices in business, government and the community," said Wantirna campus director Sheila Fitzgerald.
“However, it is not just about utilising sustainable materials and technologies in the building, it is also about having a flexible and innovative teaching facility for students that demonstrates the use of sustainable principles and encourages them to integrate sustainability into their daily lives.”
Following the official opening of the building, a centenary garden was planted with drought tolerant plants to demonstrate Swinburne’s commitment to sustainability and assist in reducing the carbon footprint of the new building.
About 300 trees indigenous to the local area were also given away.
Alumni tour to Borneo and Kuala Lumpur and Sarawak
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| Swinburne alumni tour group |
From feeding orangutans in the beautiful jungles of Borneo and to visits to indigenous long houses and fine dining and golf in Kuching – the historic seat of the white rajas – this year’s alumni tour offered the many and varied delights of Malaysia.
The tour was designed to contrast elements of the old and the new, the frenetic and the tranquil. In Kuala Lumpur, participants toured the mystical Batu Caves and the giant statue of Lord Murugan
They also visited the city’s bustling business and shopping hub where they attended a cocktail party hosted by the Malaysia Australia Business Council and met Swinburne alumni from Malaysia and members of the business community.
A focus of the tour was the opening of Swinburne’s expanded campus at Sarawak, as part of Swinburne’s centenary celebrations.
The official opening was signified with the lighting of a flame cauldron by Chief Minister of Sarawak and Pro Chancellor Swinburne Sarawak Pehin Sri Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud and Swinburne Chancellor Bill Scales, AO.
Since the Sarawak campus was first established eight years ago, it has grown rapidly and now offers programs from undergraduate to PhD level for around 2000 students.
Construction of the eight new buildings began in late 2005 and was completed in July this year. The new facilities were funded by the Sarawak Government at a cost of RM110 million and will increase the campus’s capacity to 5000 students.
A recent independent report from the Australian Universities Quality Agency commended the rapid progress that has been made to develop the Sarawak campus.
For more information about Swinburne’s centenary visit www.swin.edu.au/centenary
Swinburne history on YouTube
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| The new McPherson Engineering School Foundation Stone Ceremony |
Rare footage of Swinburne’s Hawthorn campus life in the 1950s, 60s and 70s has been made available to all on the video sharing website YouTube.
Swinburne Library staff have uploaded digitised recordings from the last half century of the institution’s history at www.youtube.com/swinvideos where you can see:
- A young David Williamson spruiking the Swinburne faculties in a promotional film produced by the Film & TV students in 1972
- The 1960 ceremony to lay the foundation stone for the Ethel Swinburne Building that has now been demolished to make way for the state-of-the-art Advanced Technology building.
- The grand parade along Burwood Rd to mark the City of Hawthorn’s centenary in 1960.
- A young Malcolm Fraser opening the Library in 1972.
- Student excursions and sports days from the early 1950s.
The project came about when broadcaster SBS contacted the university to obtain archival footage of former Swinburne staff member, playwright David Williamson’s appearance in ‘The Right Door’ - a promotional film on Swinburne’s courses - for a series profiling famous Australians.
In the process of digitising the old film footage, Library staff unearthed other recordings and realised that by bringing old recordings into a modern format, they could be made available to a wider audience.
The Library became a YouTube member and is uploading more material as other old films are digitised, including a compilation of video footage and audio recordings of Ethel Swinburne’s message to the future.
Research helps old bodies work smarter
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| Swinburne researchers are developing products for the elderly to address common problems in the home |
As the number of Australians aged over 65 increases, researchers are developing practical solutions to address the problems of an ageing population.
Professor Ajay Kapoor, Dr Peter Higgins and Dr Soullis Tavrou, engineers from Swinburne's Centre for Ageing, are aiming to give elderly people independence in their own homes, by developing products based on the age-related weakening of the body.
The researchers use what they call an ‘ability index’ to analyse how the body works to perform various actions, such as moving from a sitting to a standing position. It means calculating the amount of force that a person needs to apply with their knees and their hip muscles, depending on their bodyweight and the size of their limbs.
Using the ability index the researchers look at what is involved in a typical day – from getting up and getting dressed, to making breakfast and walking to the letterbox. They are starting to work with older people to come up with designs that address common issues experienced when performing these tasks.
So, for example, a simple action such as heating a saucepan of milk could involve many difficulties linked to failing eyesight, problems with perception, shakiness, difficulty applying force and so on. If seeing the object is a problem, perhaps it can be created in a different colour that can be perceived better, or if shakiness is an issue perhaps the design can be changed to a two-handled saucepan.
While at this stage the engineers are focused on researching and assessing the physical needs of the ageing population, in the next couple of years they will look to develop and commercialise their products.
Bringing football history to online audiences
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| Swinburne students have developed two online exhibitions that capture the history of football |
The 2008 Aussies Rules season may be over, but football fans can indulge their passion online during the AFL’s 150th anniversary year.
Working in conjunction with the Australian Football League and Associate Professor Angelina Russo, multimedia students from Swinburne’s Faculty of Design have developed two online exhibitions that capture the history of the game.
Angelina has also set up a social media site: australian football’s origins where she hopes audiences will continue to share their knowledge and content around the beginnings of the game.
“Australian Rules football touches the lives of over 11 million people in Australia alone,” Angelina said. “That’s a big audience base to consider when you’re working with cultural content and social media.
“If we can get even a small proportion of those dedicated football fans to connect with the historic content – and possibly to share their own, we’ll have a great foundation from which to research a wide range of experiences.”
The online exhibition projects brought together Swinburne design students with the AFL, State Library of Victoria and Melbourne Cricket Club library in an innovative collaboration.
It focused on the ways in which audiences use content from within libraries and museums to improve their understanding of sporting history. The two online exhibitions developed from this research and can be found at AFL 150.
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