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Adam Malpass

Adam Malpass

MEng Electronic Engineering (second year)

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T1, C# and the EVAs

T1, C# and the EVAs There may be more acronyms than you can shake a stick at in that title, but it’ll all come clear… It’s been a very busy three weeks since I arrived back from Easter, largely due to many courseworks and deadlines! This past week we had the infamous T1 lab, where we were challenged to produce a Tune Generator capable of playing a basic ‘melody’ (read ‘hideous square wave beeps’). Continue reading →

Cryptography and Other Projects

It’s now exactly 6 months since I started at Southampton – boy does time fly when you’re having fun! I can clearly remember sitting in the car half a year ago, not quite sure what I would find here, but half a year down the line I can honestly say I am having the time of my life. Indeed, it is currently our Easter holidays and it seems really strange being at home and not being able to just wander into Zepler or my flat whenever I please. Continue reading →

A Cabinet Minister visits, Student Robotics and Exams

A Cabinet Minister visits, Student Robotics and Exams Last Monday, the UK Governments’ top Ministers all descended on Southampton for a historic first meeting of the Cabinet in the city. After it was over, Lord Drayson the Minister for Science and Innovation, came to ECS and I was one of a privileged few invited to hear him speak and give my views on the state of science, and in particular science education in the UK. Continue reading →

Credit Crunch

Overhyped by the media or not, there can now be no denying that we are in the midst of a financial crisis, or ‘credit crunch’ to use the term in vogue. I witnessed this for myself yesterday. You may remember me posting in my second blog way back in October (or if you don’t, scroll down a bit!) that the University’s Science and Engineering Careers Fair was awash with placement opportunities, even for us as first years. Continue reading →

End of Exams

End of exams! It’s the end of exams! Yay! Whilst as first years they might not count towards our final degree classification, we all still wanted to do well and getting used to a new exam system is always daunting, so it’s a great relief now they’re over. And I don’t think they went too badly either, which is good. Logic and Maths were both fine, but there was a nasty surprise in our next paper, as it had been made 25% longer than in previous years, but in the same amount of time. Continue reading →

Upcoming Exams – Fast Forward!

Exams! I had my last lecture of the semester this morning, and that can only mean one thing – exams! Yes that’s right, fast forward to Monday afternoon and I’ll be sitting my first proper university exam, on Logic Circuit Design. I had a lot of grounding in this area from my A-level Electronics course, but I have been (pleasantly) surprised by the amount of interesting new material covered. Continue reading →

A Very Fiendish Technical Report

Merry Christmas Everyone! With my last lectures of term out of the way this morning I’m now truly free to join in with the Christmas spirit! We have Slade blaring away in the background and I’m about to wrap presents for my flat’s party tonight. We’re hopefully going ice-skating in the town centre this afternoon too, which I’m really looking forward to! Fast forward to tomorrow and I’ll be back enjoying the creature comforts of home, though I’m going to really miss being here. Continue reading →

IET Ambition and Achievement Awards

Money is a major issue when it comes to university, but there are opportunities available to get support from companies and other organisations. I applied for a scholarship from the IET which initially entailed copious form-filling and writing many UCAS-style personal statements. After a few months I was fortunate to find I was one of the 20 selected to attend interview from an initial batch of around 400. The interview was tough but I was happy with how it went. I’d just have to wait and see. Continue reading →

Careers, Mountbatten and Freebies!

I’ve just experienced firsthand how valued ECS students really are. I visited the University’s IT, Science and Engineering Careers Fair and you only have to say you’re studying Electro… - and they’re falling over themselves to promote their particular companies and careers options. They then all asked what year I was in and I somewhat sheepishly replied, “First”, assuming that they would no longer be interested, but I was wrong. Continue reading →