This past Tuesday, professor Simon Fabri from the University of Malta came to a site that we were mapping with two of his upper division students. They were working on similar robotics projects, and visited to check out how we were collecting data. Midway through the day Brent and I stepped aside with them to ask a few questions about our respective research projects.
My research topic aims to examine the similarities and differences between engineering educations awarded from Malta's two main tertiary academies: University of Malta and Malta College of Arts, Science, and Technology (MCAST). I was able to compile a few facts about each school from research done in the states, but was crippled by the distance between myself and primary resources who could tell me their first hand accounts of trends in my topic. Now that I'm here, things the research is coming along quickly.
Professor Fabri told me that being a professor at University of Malta, naturally, he had more experience with the education offered there. He said that the department of engineering was broken into 6 majors, with 2 different BS degrees offered. Mechanical, Manufacturing, and Materials/Metallurgy fed into a Mechanical Engineering BS, while Electronics, Electrical Power, and Systems fed into an Electrical Engineering BS. University of Malta also offers a 'masters by research' degree, which takes ~13 months to complete. At the moment there are about 30 students per faculty member in that program. Normally, a degree from U of M takes 4 years, but in special cases (such as the case of the two students accompanying Prof. Fabri), a degree can be completed in 3.
From what I have heard and read about the two universities, University of Malta offers traditional engineering degrees, while MCAST is a polytechnic university that offers degrees to fill a gap at the technician level. MCAST was not created for this reason, but because it is a new university it is still in the process of stabilizing itself. I have an interview lined up with Professor Carmel Pule, a professor at University of Malta who led the division of the two universities in 1978. Hopefully I will have much more information on the matter with the arrival of his response.
One thing that stood out from the interview with Professor Fabri was that engineering students at the University of Malta do not have any general education courses. Their coursework is entirely engineering based, and all of their general education is provided by the two years of school prior to tertiary education. As a student from a polytechnic university who takes one or two general education courses every quarter, to me this was quite a different way of completing a degree.
This is a rough synopsis of my research in Malta so far, and in the next blog post I will dive into more depth with some of the statistics comparing the two universities.
Showing posts with label simon fabri. Show all posts
Showing posts with label simon fabri. Show all posts
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Elementary bots, Tas-Silg, and Bocci Boulders
Last night our third professor (Chris Clark) landed, and he and I prepared for our presentations at St. Edward's College (a primary and secondary private school). This morning, a bunch of us went out running, and came back just in time to leave for the school. When we arrived, we set up all of the binary encoder robots that we presented at Pacheco during winter quarter at Cal Poly, and watched in awe as WAY more kids filed in than we had previously expected. We still managed pretty well. Our audience consisted of ~65 3rd and 4th graders.
Chris started off by giving a talk on how robots work, why they are important, and how they can be used to beneficially. I got up and gave a short explanation on how to program the bots that the kids would be fiddling around with, and then we split up into groups. We all had a great time, and the kids were ecstatic to get to work with robots. We packed up and took off from St. Edwards at about 10:30, and headed straight for our site: Tas-Silg.
Tas-Silg is an ancient temple site located on the south-western side of the island by the coast. We set up the control boxes and robot, and deployed into our first cistern. This was BY FAR the coolest cistern that we have done on this trip so far. There were a bunch of twisty, rubble filled passages, and the water was crystal clear (although I still would not drink from it).
After 15 minutes of driving in the cistern, Timmy (our awesome host) showed up to give us a tour of the grounds. David Cardona, a graduate student at University of Malta also showed up to check in with us. A little later, Prof. Simon Fabri, a professor at University of Malta, showed up with two of his students who were doing similar robotics work. Brent and I gave them a tour of our equipment and setup, and then asked them a couple of questions on our research topics for our global engineering class. Once that was done, Tim and I set up the go-pros on the ROV, and deployed to get some textures from the first cistern. We hoisted the ROV up and deployed into the second cistern (located 20m away from the first). We finished up at about 3:00, and called the bus driver.
It turns out that the bus driver wasn't going to be able to get there until 4:15, and Zoe had to give a talk at the university at 4:00. Timmy & Simon took Zoe, Jane, Chris, Brent, and Jeff in their cars. The rest of us stayed with the equipment on site until the bus driver showed up. Since we had an hour to kill, we decided to play an awesome game that we call bocci boulders (similar to bocci ball.... but... with boulders). Tim was surprisingly good, and won nearly every round except for the rounds where a car ran over his boulder and smashed it into pieces.
The driver finally showed up and we hopped in. The drive home was relaxing, and I spent a lot of time thinking about how much I am going to miss this trip. It has been such a great experience, and it's really too bad that it's already halfway over! We got home, unloaded, and did some coding for our software projects. I got the mosaic for the day wrapped up and will start working on the second cistern shortly. It's been a great day, and the next week is looking similarly awesome!
Chris started off by giving a talk on how robots work, why they are important, and how they can be used to beneficially. I got up and gave a short explanation on how to program the bots that the kids would be fiddling around with, and then we split up into groups. We all had a great time, and the kids were ecstatic to get to work with robots. We packed up and took off from St. Edwards at about 10:30, and headed straight for our site: Tas-Silg.
Tas-Silg is an ancient temple site located on the south-western side of the island by the coast. We set up the control boxes and robot, and deployed into our first cistern. This was BY FAR the coolest cistern that we have done on this trip so far. There were a bunch of twisty, rubble filled passages, and the water was crystal clear (although I still would not drink from it).
After 15 minutes of driving in the cistern, Timmy (our awesome host) showed up to give us a tour of the grounds. David Cardona, a graduate student at University of Malta also showed up to check in with us. A little later, Prof. Simon Fabri, a professor at University of Malta, showed up with two of his students who were doing similar robotics work. Brent and I gave them a tour of our equipment and setup, and then asked them a couple of questions on our research topics for our global engineering class. Once that was done, Tim and I set up the go-pros on the ROV, and deployed to get some textures from the first cistern. We hoisted the ROV up and deployed into the second cistern (located 20m away from the first). We finished up at about 3:00, and called the bus driver.
It turns out that the bus driver wasn't going to be able to get there until 4:15, and Zoe had to give a talk at the university at 4:00. Timmy & Simon took Zoe, Jane, Chris, Brent, and Jeff in their cars. The rest of us stayed with the equipment on site until the bus driver showed up. Since we had an hour to kill, we decided to play an awesome game that we call bocci boulders (similar to bocci ball.... but... with boulders). Tim was surprisingly good, and won nearly every round except for the rounds where a car ran over his boulder and smashed it into pieces.
The driver finally showed up and we hopped in. The drive home was relaxing, and I spent a lot of time thinking about how much I am going to miss this trip. It has been such a great experience, and it's really too bad that it's already halfway over! We got home, unloaded, and did some coding for our software projects. I got the mosaic for the day wrapped up and will start working on the second cistern shortly. It's been a great day, and the next week is looking similarly awesome!
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