Today we’re talking to Karen Law from Meggit PLC. We first met Karen when she was a student at the University of Bath studying Mechanical Engineering. Karen participated at Formula Student UK, Formula Student Germany, and Formula Student Austria and we’d often speak at the MathWorks booths. Now, Karen works for Meggitt PLC, where she uses MATLAB and Simulink on a daily basis. I bumped into Karen at one of our MATLAB EXPOs and this is what she had to say.

您在这些比赛中学到了什么？

Why did you choose to get involved in these competitions?

I chose to do engineering at university because I enjoyed learning about how things work and how things are made. The practical element was important to me so the idea of designing and building a physical race car was especially appealing to me. I got involved in Team Bath Racing as part of our third year Group Business Design Project and we competed in the FSUK Class 2 competition before returning the following year with our Class 1 entry which was all designed from scratch. We also got the chance to show off our car at FS Germany and FS Austria which was an exciting (yet stressful) experience! Formula Student allows you to work in a team, tackle proper engineering problems together and exposes you to the new emerging technologies from the automotive industry which can be implemented in our design. There’s a strong business element to the competition and it would not possible to build a race car without our sponsors. Formula Student provides a framework for us to collaborate with industrial sponsors, to develop or enhance technologies that benefit both the sponsor and the Formula Student team. Finally, I got involved because it sounded like a fun project! The competitions were a great opportunity to show off and celebrate our work and the work of the other formula student teams around the world!

What was your role on the team?

我是团队浴赛车的空气动力学铅。Having zero knowledge of the aerodynamics of cars or even where to begin designing aerodynamics, I questioned my life choices at the time. The pressure was even greater when all the other department leads had some sort of experience in automotive and F1! However, I was determined to fulfill my role, I took on the responsibility of simulating full car CFD and scale-model wind tunnel testing for validation as well as scheduling the manufacturing process of producing our entire aerodynamics package out of carbon fibre. In my free time, my business role in the team was to organize outreach events and attempt to manage the social media pages although I can’t take any of the credit of the memes throughout the competition!

Did you use MATLAB/Simulink in the development of your car?

MATLABwas used excessively by other members of the team in the powertrain and vehicle dynamics department and it proved very helpful during the design phase. If I’m honest, I didn’t use much MATLAB; not because it was difficult to use but because the thought of deciphering lines of code (which is usually what I associate MATLAB with) was very daunting. The extent of my MATLAB knowledge at university was for producing pretty graphs for reports (for which I still had to Google the functions for ‘plot’).

How Did the Competition Help You Find a Job?

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它促使我学习有助于汽车设计的新软件。我能够应用我在讲座中学到的一些理论，并通过身体或计算机模拟在汽车上进行测试。

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您认为使用这些工具所获得的技能在您的职业生涯中对您有所帮助？如果是这样，怎么样？

我从团队浴场中学到的技能之一是能够快速理解和学习使用软件/工具的能力。就我的研究生课程的轮换方面而言，这在我的职业生涯中非常有益，这意味着我必须能够快速拾取并使用软件。对我来说幸运的是，我当前轮换使用的软件是Matlab和Simulink，我每天使用它。金宝app

您在竞争中的动手经验是否有助于您为您在行业中的首要角色做好准备？

确实。设计汽车是一件事，这是另一件事。确保可以制造汽车的所有空气动力元素是一个挑战，更不用说耗时了！碳篮子是一种利基技巧，而且我在职业生涯中不太可能再次使用，但是我认为，对制造物品的制造方式非常重要，就像工程师一样重要！我最喜欢的是在配方奶学生团队中的一件事之一是实用的动手元素。它促使我学习有助于汽车设计的新软件。我能够应用我在讲座中学到的一些理论，并通过身体或计算机模拟在汽车上进行测试。它还促使我学会使用新工具和机器为汽车制作物理零件，因为没有什么比紧迫的截止日期更具动力来在我们的赞助商面前推动汽车！

你今天在做什么？

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I now use Simulink all day, everyday! It’s much more intuitive to MATLAB code, and I’m able to visualize what I model which makes it less daunting.

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In your current role at Meggitt do you use MATLAB/Simulink?

I’m currently on my first graduate rotation at Meggitt Avionics as a Systems engineer and I now use Simulink all day, everyday! It’s much more intuitive to MATLAB code, and I’m able to visualize what I model which makes it less daunting. I started the job with no prior experience of Simulink, but the skills that I learnt from being in fast pace formula student team allowed me to pick it up quite quickly. I still have to decipher MATLAB code in order to model it in Simulink, but thanks to the company coding standards, that’s made it easier to understand too.

What big project you are working on right now?

I’m currently focused on a Model-based Systems Engineering (MBSE) project. I’m looking at ways to incorporate model-based systems in our current system development process. To do this, I use Simulink as our modelling tool, and I investigate the useful Simulink toolboxes that MathWorks offer to help define this process. MBSE is becoming more and more prevalent in engineering and the ability to model, simulate, and test systems is becoming more popular in industry.

Key Takeaways

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对制造物品的制造方式非常重要，与工程师如此重要！

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您会给年轻的工程师提供什么建议？

首先，做您喜欢的事！无论这是工程的特定领域，还是您喜欢学习或创造东西。我发现，当我做自己喜欢的事情时，我会更加富有成效，而且感觉更积极，这也可以使周围的环境受益。

其次，提出问题并好奇！有人告诉您，您在职业生涯中仅使用约10％的学位（这是10％的未知数），其余的知识和专业知识是通过学习工作和有机会付诸实践的。因此，通过表现出对公司的兴趣并提出问题来展示您学习和发展的意愿。

Finally, something I took from being in Formula Student: don’t be afraid of failure. There were many wins, but also fails during my time with TBR, and it’s important to be able to reflect on them and see them as opportunities to grow and learn about yourself. Not to mention, a popular interview question is always to do with a time you overcame a challenge or were unable to achieve your goal, so even if it feels rubbish that you failed, at least you’ll have something to talk about!

Is there anything else that you would like to add?

尽管在18个月内从头开始设计和制造一辆汽车在当时有些压力，但我将时间与配方奶学生联系起来，并获得许多美好的回忆和成就。我鼓励每个人有机会参加比赛，因为参与其中有很多要获得的—from both a technical and non-technical perspective. Finally, I’d like to express my utmost appreciation to Team Bath Racing and all of our industrial sponsors for making it possible to compete and giving me the opportunity to develop myself as an engineer in preparation to work in industry.