Our third and final full team meeting for this academic year took place on Monday, amid anticipation to view the latest updated on the work across all teams! The meeting held at Hilton Glasgow Grosvenor was, in fact, the longest we have ever had, stretching over 6 hours (but we did have a lunch break)!

Highlights from the X-Plorer 2 team include major progress on one of the high priority items on our agenda- the finite element modelling of 3D printed parts. The Power Transmission team has been working on recreating the geometry of an actual 3D printed part from the tool paths with the ultimate goal being to calibrate a model using ANSYS so that the significant anisotropy is taken into account. One of the two members leading the FEA research, Paul Strang, said:

Exhaust also presented a newer, more elaborate design for the thrust reversers that will be introduced to the X-Plorer 2, with some additional work required to address scaling issues. Progress from Kronos has been impressive, with the programme running ahead of schedule despite the initially challenging theoretical design stage. The exhaust team stood out, showing major progress on the nozzle and afterburner design and managed to run initial CFD simulations in the limited amount of time for computational simulations this semester. Exhaust team leader, Cami Leslie said:

Electronics presented what is expended to be the most major improvement for the entire EMS, both for hardware and software. The team's careful planning and appreciation for the way the systems will integrate with the upcoming engines, enabled the rest of the team to appreciate the work which most others don't usually have to get involved with. The team is expected to deliver the new system by July, when it will be used for an X-Plorer 1 variant.

One of the most engaging features of our final presentations is the ability for members to vote for other teams' presentations in real time and assess them in three areas: presentation skills, technical content and overall progress. This year, this was enabled using MeetingPulse! Through their kind sponsorship, we ran live polling easier than ever before and gathered all data to present at the end of the meeting. 88% of attendees said that the use of MeetingPulse made the meeting and presentations more engaging and 7 out 10 stated that it made the process more competitive!

Last week, we had the opportunity to go on a two-day trip to Lossiemouth and present our work to two very different audiences; the Rolls-Royce team at RAF Lossiemouth and pupils at Hythehill Primary school!

On Monday, we had the pleasure of introducing the X-Plorer 1 and our current projects at the team of the Rolls-Royce Service Delivery Centre within RAF Lossiemouth. The unit responsible for the first line of maintenance for the Typhoon engines, the EJ200, welcomed us and following a presentation on our work, showed us around the facility, giving us the opportunity to inspect an engine up close and find out more about some of the operational and maintenance aspects of the EJ200. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to the facility and we are looking forward to returning and running the X-Plorer 1 next time!

Paul Gardner (Rolls-Royce RAF Propulsion Centre) with JetX vice-president, Ross Williams.

On Tuesday, we had a great time at Hythehill Primary School where we gave a talk to 4 student groups, in order to introduce students to the various engineering careers, how to get into them and what subjects are most useful. We want to not only share our experience, given that some of us didn't leave school too long ago, address some misconceptions around the engineering profession, as well as inspire the newer generation!

Each talk was followed by a 20-minute activity during which the students were asked to form teams and tackle an engineering challenge. Making use of only 3D printed connectors and paper straws the groups had to build the tallest structure that can support a mass of up to 500g. Given finite resources, a limited amount of time and the ability to "buy" additional materials for a point loss, all groups were creative with many achieving the goal of this challenge! We were impressed by many of the structures and found it to be a very suspenseful activity when it came to applying the weight.

It was great fun interacting with the students and we hope that they learned something knew, if they are not considering becoming an engineer already! If you are a teacher and would be interested to have us during a STEM event for your school, we would be delighted to hear from you; you can get in touch using the contact form or by simply emailing us at any time.