BLOGS Anton Gagne

For those who have already received offers, you have just 2 days left until the April 8th deadline to reply!

The deadline for some KTH courses of April 15 is coming up fast, and a few programs are still open for late application! Don’t miss your last chance to apply at the University Admissions website.

We just wrapped up our first day of presentations at AUTH from the consortium partner professors and industry partners regarding their research as well as presentations from some of the student groups regarding the work they have been doing for the semester’s simulation project.

The trip to Athens and Delphi was interesting, but there’s no denying that the crisis is far from over.

As part of our study program, we will be spending a few days in Thessaloniki taking classes from our partner university and presenting results from our project work. I’m nearly packed and taking an early 0640 flight today to Athens. Next few updates I post should be from Greece!

Let’s say it’s Friday, you just turned in whatever assignment was hanging over your head, you want to go out but are still a bit tired and are looking for something a bit more low key to just relax. I suggest you check out a bomb shelter well hidden on a small residential street.

Or rather, a small door that leads down to what used to be a shelter and has been converted into Ugglan, one of the most interesting pubs I have seen in Stockholm.

Early in the evening you can come for the buffet complete with some microbrewed beer from around the world, after which the place turns into a giant underground arcade.

As I mentioned earlier, Sweden has a certain love affair with circle ping pong in some of their pubs. The way a game usually starts, all participants grab a paddle and move around the table, playing one shot against the person across. If you or them miss the shot or table, you’re eliminated.

At the end, it becomes a best two out of three shot battle for the champion’s spot.

If you want, you can also play air hockey, billiards, table football or pinball. The place is huge.

As you venture deeper, you’ll find a small room where a band is usually playing and a fake fire lights up the fireplace in an adjacent room, you can even grab a board game and relax on the couches.

It’s a really interesting place that I recommend checking out once you come to Stockholm.

Remote learning has definitely been in focus at educational institutions lately, so I thought I’d share another interesting way I encountered it while taking classes here.

In the intro to turbomachinery classes, we (along with students from partner universities) got a chance to perform several experiments testing the theory we were learning, all through a browser window from the comfort of a couch. Here’s how it worked:

There are several remote lab facilities around KTH set up for this purpose. For example, one is a rig designed to test pumping systems with pumps in parallel and series that demonstrate how different variables change the flow 

 Another is a wind tunnel with a traverse and an aerodynamic probe which you can use to measure the flow behind whatever is placed in the test section. For us it was a stationary row of turbine blades but in a later lab, a dynamic row will be used.

Every group signs up for a time with the instructor during which they can log into the web interface controlling the test rig along with several live cameras.

From that interface, you’re given control of many different variables and once the data is gathered, it gets emailed to you in a nice neat package so you could do your analysis. Then of course comes the more difficult part of putting together the report.

Yesterday, as part of the Thermal Turbomachinery class, we had a chance to visit one of our industrial partners, the Siemens industrial turbomachinery plant in Finspång, a town formerly famous for its iron and cannon production.

The scale of the machines and the production techniques involved were truly impressive, but for proprietary technology/industrial espionage reasons, we couldn’t take photos inside, so here’s a stock photo from Siemens instead:

I’ve been interested in photography for quite some time, but it wasn’t until I got my first job that I was able to finally afford an entry level DSLR. I’ve read some books, websites and watched lesson videos, but what has really helped me improve and keep learning once I got to Stockholm was finding KNEPP.

KNEPP is KTH’s photo club that frequently gets together for photo classes and studio workshops, visits to Fotografiska and photo walks around the city (from where I got many of the photos posted in this blog). For paying members, you get access to a darkroom, large photo printer and computers with photo editing software and calibrated monitors.

Like with any skill, getting tips from highly experienced people and just going out and trying it are bar none the best ways to improve, so if you’re interested in photography, I recommend you join KNEPP once you come to Stockholm.

Yesterday I had a chance to visit the KTH transport labs, a very recent addition to the campus that holds quite a few interesting projects. The lab was opened in October 2012 as a way to gather all of the transportation projects from around KTH under one roof. Upon walking in, the first thing I saw was the electric car prototype and scooter that the lab head actively uses to run errands and commute to and from work.

Directly to the right, new cars for this year’s Shell Eco-marathon are being constructed. One car will be entered as a pure proof of concept endurance vehicle

and a second car will be entered as an urban vehicle concept, meaning that besides being efficient, it needs to be a marketable concept to an urban consumer.

Above, you can see the entrants and trophies from years past.

In an adjacent room, you can find a track for testing autonomous vehicle control systems (not limited to ground vehicles either).

If you’d like to learn more, visit their website or Facebook page. If you do come to KTH and are interested, you can join one of the many projects going on, even making one your degree project!

On my way back to Lappis from the metro tonight, I got to see an amazing sight rarely seen in Stockholm. Brilliant northern lights dancing through the sky, something normally reserved for much higher latitudes. Walking out out onto a frozen lake, in near darkness and silence while seeing the world’s greatest light show was awe inspiring.