Last night (12th January) saw the Essex Branch host a series of five short presentations from seven speakers. In a break from the more conventional evening meeting and inspired by the PechaKucha approach to sharing knowledge, each speaker was given 6 minutes and 40 seconds along with 20 slides to talk about a particular project or idea.
Drilling Down under – Paul Eaves was the first to rise to the challenge and he spoke about his experience of nearshore soil investigation off the coast to North Western Australia. He described his role in a contract to complete a soil investigation programme for a new bulk carrier jetty and dredged channel. The project lasted 6 months with three teams taking turns to work 12 hour shifts over a two week period followed by a week off in Perth to recuperate. The teams had to cope with sharks, humpback whales and cyclones during the project. You can view Paul's presentation by clicking here.
Why use social media in Construction – Su Butcher gave four reasons for construction professionals to talk more and another four reasons to do it on line that include “it saves time” and “everyone is doing it”. She explained that the industry was ‘borked’ (US political slang for “broken”) in that the cost of good design and construction is far outweighed by the business outcomes that they deliver. To find out more try googling “Su Butcher” or visit www.justpractising.com. You can view Su's presenataion by clicking here.
London Gateway Port – a team of Matt Fitch, Orestes Adamou and Ed Labinski of Laing O’Rourke gave a overview of the first phase of development of the DP World’s London Gateway port on the northern banks of the Thames Estuary. This huge construction project includes 200km of dredging that will allow some of the world’s largest container vessels to dock within easy reach of London. As well as introducing the project the team explained the construction sequence for the new berth and discussed how potential problems of differential settlement are being tackled. You can view the Matt, Orestes and Ed's presentation by clicking here.
NCE Graduate of the Year – Claire Gott used her allotted time to talk about Diverse opportunities in Engineering. She used her charitable work in Cameroon and Tanzania to illustrate the value of civil engineering and to describe the fantastic results from the first year of operation of her charity Cameroon Catalyst. Claire and co-founder, Emily Hill, visited Cameroon in 2009 to work out what help they could give to the village of Bambouti in Eastern Cameroon. In the founding year, the Cameroon Catalyst team developed the design for a new school, and made use of local materials and building techniques so that the villagers could complete the work themselves (including hand digging a 12m deep well in 5 days). Find out more at www.camerooncatalyst.org. You can view Claire's presentation by clicking here.
Danny Jennings rounded off the evening with an insight into Winter Maintenance in Essex. Danny explained how forecasting is used to determine the dew point and frost point on roads in Essex and said that treating over 3000km of “A”, “B” and most bus routes typically takes 4 hours and uses over 200 tonnes of salt. He ended his talk with a photo of his fridge door...
Feedback from the evening has been really positive with one attendee saying that it was “one of the best meetings I’ve attended for a long time”...”a real breath of fresh air".
Read more on Essex Branch Chair, Andrew Kenyon's blog: http://constructionetc.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/ice-essex-goes-japanese/
From left to right Claire Gott, Danny Jennings, Su Butcher, Orestes Adamou, Edlabinski, Matt Fitch and Paul Eaves.
PechaKucha was devised in Tokyo in February 2003 as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public. Its name comes from the Japanese term for the sound of conversation ("chit chat"), it rests on a presentation format that is based on a simple idea: 20 images x 20 seconds. Find out more at www.pecha-kucha.org