Hello my name is Dr Andrew Maxwell. I am a lecturer in Faculty of Engineering and Surveying and I work within the electrical electronic and computer discipline of the Faculty.
I just want to take a bit of time now and talk you through this presentation title “Clever country Smart State” and how do you fit in.

Well first of all, what are you interested in. This is a fundamental question you need to ask yourself. Are you actually interested in electricity, electricity supply, system of that nature, renewable energy, electronic and computer hardware, software engineering? Are you interested in industrial control systems or even robotics? This is the question you need to ask yourself because we might have a degree qualification that will suits you.

There is a fair amount of overlap in the degrees that we offer within the faculty. I just want to take you through some of those offerings to see if they might actually help you.
First of all, the Faculty of Engineering and Surveying is situated in the Toowoomba campus and it is from that location we distributed our courses and our degrees to both on-campus and external students.

So, we get back to the question “what are you interested in”? If you are interested in an electrical and electronic engineering then our students can learn about electrical design, radio, television, mobile communication. They can learn about internet, and wireless systems. They can also learn about antenna design, satellite communication and electrical machinery.
The types of application that this sort of degree might offer is you might get to work with medical electronics, mobile phone systems, wireless communications and many many more.
Are you interested in computer systems engineering? If so, then that’s concerned with the design of computing systems anything from large service down to small desktop systems and even to what we called embedded systems. These are small computers found in mobile phones, games and media players. If you did a degree in this area, you’ve learned about micro processes, how to program them, talking directly to the chip and even how to process audio and video.

Are you interested in implementation and control? If so, then this degree will talk about and deal with instrumentation, sensor and control systems, fluid engineering, this concept has been incorporated because a lot of these programs are relevant to the needs of the heavy industries. If you have something that need to be mined and needs to be processed and manufactured, you need to have control and instrumentation engineers.

So, how do you reach your goals? You can choose from a full time, part time while you work or a combination of those that works for you. A number of companies have cadetships for students in electrical and electronic engineering. So, for example you might want to study full time and then work full time and study part time. So, what is it that you want to achieve? Well, a degree qualification from USQ Electrical Engineering opens up many doors to industry, helping the country with the school shortage. For you this is a rewarding career, both personally and financially. So, you can choose from any one of the following areas:

We have the Associate degree which is 2 years of full time study. Upper step from that is the Bachelor of Engineering Technology degree which is 3 years of full time study. Then we have the final degree which is the Bachelor of Engineering degree which is 4 years of full time study. But of course you can change your mind along the way, we are here to help guide you.
So, what is it we as the faculty emphasise? Well, throughout your study, you’ll find that as part of the academic learning we play as strong emphasis on practical work. A lot of our students do practical work together in small teams and learn from each other.

Also, one of the thing we emphasise a class size; you generally find the class sizes are smaller. Thus, you can speak directly to your lecturer and in fact most students will actually know their lecturer by name. Also, we emphasise the use of technology resources in learning. Say you want to chat about an assignment online from your PC, you can do that. Say you want to review your lecture from your laptop, not a problem; we can help you with that.

Can I achieve that? Well if you are a bit hesitant about whether or not you can achieve this, it might be a good idea to chat with one of our staff. We are here to help and you can achieve a lot with just the right guidance. So what equipment do we actually have here on campus for you to work with? We have various laboratories covering a great range of the areas that we teach. Let me just take you quickly through a couple of the example of laboratories and equipment systems that we have for you. We have laboratories in radio frequency engineering where you can learn about mobile communication, wireless networks, satellites and microwave systems.
We also have an electronic design laboratory where you could build and test your own electronic circuit. We have a micro processer design lab where you can design, build and program your own micro processer or small computer system. Along from that we also have a computer networking lab where you get to build your own mini internet, computer system and actually network with classmates.

As well as this, we have a power engineering laboratory with the state of the art industrial motors, generators and lighting systems. And just new to the Faculty, we have a new renewal energy lab where you can learn about solar generation, wind power and fuel cells. The Electrical Engineering discipline has recently had more than $300,000 worth of equipment injected in the Faculty. Some of these come from the government; some of it is paid for by industry. We also have specialised software that let you design power system, wind generators and many other type of technical systems. Now, in the faculty we recognise the training needs of industry and university qualifications, we realised that both of those are complimentary. We also give appropriate credit to prior work and study experience. We have formalised agreements with Ergon Energy for power systems and Bio Medical Technology Services which provide Queensland Health Medical Electonics. Cooperation with these industry employers is essential for your success. It helps you get a good position upon graduation. So, how can you find out more? Well, first of all we’d be happy to talk to you about any of the issues that you are thinking about now with regard to Electrical Engineering. Even if you just want to touch base with us, that’s fine. There are several paid scholarships for school leavers in 2010, this will be on our website later in 2009. WE also have a direct email communication area for you, if you wish to email us you may do so at engsurv@usq.edu.au and you also see in the slides there are 3 separate links there for you to access further information about the 3 main areas that we teach being Electrical, Electronic Engineering, Computer Systems Engineering and Power Engineering. Finally I’d like to thank you for watching this presentation.