Competition winner: Make it Fly (round one)

I submitted two ideas for the make it fly competition round one. There were twelve winners out of over a hundred entries, both of my ideas won. I received a £100 Amazon vouchers for the prize. I will be entering one of the ideas into the second round of the competition.

Starting a PhD at Newcastle University September 2008

I have been accepted onto a 3 year funded PhD at Newcastle University. The PhD title is “Multi-Metric based Decision Making in Whole Process Design”. I will be starting the course on the 22nd September 2008. More details on my postgraduate research can be found by clicking here.

Graduated with Masters Summer 2008

On the 1st July 2008 I graduated with an Upper Second-Class Honours (2:1) Masters degree in Product Design and Development at Queens University Belfast. This gives me an official title of Richard Hodgett MEng. My final average was 65% placing me exactly in the middle of what was required for this classification.

Erasmus Placement in Gothenburg 2008

During my last semester I lived in Sweden attending courses at Chalmers and Gothenburg University as part of an Erasmus placement. During this time I worked in an international project group designing a roof rack system for Modul-system and also attended courses in technology based law and environmental design. Living in Sweden allowed me to meet some fascinating people, travel and also learn a bit of the Swedish language.

25K Awards Finalist 2007

I was part of a team of four members who developed a product called the Synergy Bed-Ez. Together we designed a market business plan and built a prototype model which gained recognition as a finalist of the 25K design awards. To read more about the 25K finalists please visit the Northern Ireland Science Park Website.

Summer Placement in Belgrade, Serbia 2007

During the summer I was away on a student placement with IAESTE. I was placed in Serbia working at a company called Ikarbus. I ended up working with the engineers to develop a minibus for the Italian market. I worked for the company for six weeks learning many things from different engineering fields while also meeting many international students from all around the world.