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Technical Meeting:
20th March 2012
The March meeting of the Association will take
place in room H17, Napier University Merchiston
Campus, Colinton
Road, Edinburgh
(near to Holy Corner, Morningside).
There will be two presentations.
Michael Guile of the Scottish Schools Equipment Research Centre will
present the outcome of work funded by the Association to develop teaching
resources for schools. Then Ken
Smith will talk about his researches into the history of Mons Meg, the medieval supergun at Edinburgh
Castle.
Refreshments
are available from 6.30pm and the meeting commences at 7pm. All are welcome.
 Annual
General Meeting
The 2011 Annual
General Meeting of the Scottish Association for Metals on Tuesday 18th
October unanimously elected Professor Liz Tanner, Professor of Biomedical
Materials at the University
of Glasgow as its
President for the next two years.
Past Presidents and Auditors Dinner
Fourteen Past
Presidents and Auditors of the Association attended a dinner at the
Millennium Hotel, Glasgow
on 21st September
2011to celebrate the IOM3 Outstanding Service Award made to SAM Treasurer and
Investments Manager Dr Mike Arrowsmith.
Mike has held office with SAM and
its predecessor the Institute
of Metals Scottish
branch for an astonishing 47 years.
From left to right: Les Buchanan
(President 1992-1994); Douglas Baird (President 1982-84); Bill Barr (Auditor
1999 – present); Liz Tanner (President-Elect 2011-13); Craig Mason (Council
Member); Ian Hamilton (President 1978-80); Mike Batchelor (Auditor 1997 –
present); Alan Davidson (President 2007 – 2009); Margaret Stack (President
2005 – 2007); John Wilcox (President 2003 – 2005); Mike Arrowsmith
(Treasurer 1964 – 1998; Investments Manager 1998 – present); Ken Smith
(President 1994 – 1996) and John Darling (President 2009 – 2011).
R W Thomson Prestige Lecture
The Mining
Institute of Scotland on behalf of the Scottish Local Societies (SPRA, SAM)
was delighted to welcome Diane Aston to Aberdeen
on 13th September to give the 2011 RW Thomson Lecture at Techfest.
Diane, the IOM3 Training &
Education Executive, has travelled widely to give her "Materials in
Action" lecture but this was the first time in Aberdeen.
 To
an audience made up of the general public and ranging in age from 12 to over
60, she delivered a fascinating one hour talk that covered the properties and
use of the four basic material groups of metals, polymers, ceramics and
composites. Accompanied by samples of turbo fan blades, artificial human
eyes, sports protection equipment and much more she made us all think a lot
more about essential 21st century technology that simply would not be
possible without the advances in materials science over the last 20 years.
In a fitting nod to the inventors
of the more distant past and in particular Robert Thomson himself,
it was a delightful to have members of the RW Thomson Memorial Fellowship
attending, pictured below with Diane.
Resources for Technology Teachers
The Association
has funded a
project at the Scottish Schools Equipment Research Centre (SSERC) to develop
teaching resources for technology teachers. The funding allowed the purchase
of equipment and resources in the
 following areas of technology:
- Sublimation
printing;
- Vacuum
bag bending/gluing;
- Computer
controlled printer/vinyl cutter.
- Smart
materials, sample resources and textbooks
- Production of written
teacher/pupil resource materials.
The
first three areas are new to SSERC technology and has
provided an exciting opportunity to provide teachers with new ideas and new
approaches particularly at a time when the curriculum is changing.
Teacher and pupil resource
materials will appear on the SSERC website (from August 2011) for use
throughout Scottish Primary and Secondary schools. These materials can be
downloaded easily.
You can download a copy of the
full report of the project here.
Big Bang!
Launched in
2009, The Big Bang: UK Young Scientists & Engineers Fair is the UK’s biggest
single celebration of science and engineering for young people and aims to
celebrate and inspire them. This year in excess of 29,000 people attended the
event which was held at the ICC ExCel Centre in London on the 10-12
March 2011.
 Nuffield
Bursary student Hasan Jamal was amongst the prize
winners at the event. Hasan had completed a six
week science based project based in the Manufacturing Laboratory at
Rolls-Royce (Inchinnan) The Association provided
grant support to allow him to attend the Big Bang event in London.
Hasan
is a former Renfrew High school
pupil and is now studying Aeronautical Engineering at Strathclyde
University in Glasgow.
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