In this video Martin describes his willingness to collaborate in research projects by designing and making electronic devices, sensors or actuators.
 
Background:

I prefer in my research efforts to collaborate with others, and generally I do this by making electronic devices needed in research projects.? I have a great deal of experience in the analogue field, which generally involves interfacing with the “real world”, so comes down to using different types of sensors and, less often, actuators.? However, over the last few years I have worked a great deal with microcontrollers, which are small, very versatile, re-programmable, cheap, single-chip computers.? These interface with all kinds of other hardware to make small systems that can interact with the world, typically by taking measurements, making a decision based on some algorithm, and then driving some sort of output or actuator.? Of course, sometimes the output may be to simply record the measurements so they can be passed to a PC later via, for example, USB.

I can design and make systems on a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) and I can also design systems on an Integrated Circuit (but that’s usually extremely expensive to fabricate).? I also have a fair amount of experience in making larger numbers of identical PCB-based systems, which generally involves knowing how to work with industry to get larger numbers of PCBs made and populated quickly and cheaply.

In my early days I worked with valve-based amplifiers and, while I would not expect to do that today, it means I am comfortable working with high voltages.? For example I recently designed and made a high-power amplifier with a 1300V output swing.

I actually like making things and I’ve been doing it for a while.?The experience gained allows me to tackle all sorts of odd jobs that are seen as being “unusual”.

Find out more:

Dr Martin Reekie, School of Engineering profile: http://www.eng.ed.ac.uk/about/people/dr-h-m-reekie
Edinburgh Research Explorer: http://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/martin