Newbury Electronics Supports Students to Win European CanSat 2015 Competition

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Newbury Electronics was delighted to hear that Team Impulse, a group of students from St Paul’s School, London had won first place in the European CanSat 2015 competition. The company first became involved with this team of young engineers when they were asked to supply prototype PCBs back in the autumn of 2014.  These were then incorporated into the satellite that secured them first place in the UK competition and took them onto the final international round, held in Lisbon, Portugal last weekend.

Philip King, managing director at Newbury Electronics, said; "It is great to be able to encourage the next generation of engineers and to see what they are able to achieve. We look forward to hearing more about Team Impulse's ideas and projects in the future and are considering other ways of helping schools and universities with their various projects."

In the CanSat competition, teams’ “can satellites” are launched in a rocket to an altitude of about a kilometre, before descending by a parachute. Team Impulse designed and produced a semi-autonomous rover, which was capable of measuring air temperature, pressure and humidity, while using an infrared camera to produce a heat-map of the ground. Regrettably, the IR camera broke shortly before launch and the CanSat couldn’t be demonstrated roving immediately after launch; however, the damage was repaired fast enough to give a successful live demonstration during the presentation to judges the next day. In addition, the team streamed data back to the ground from launch until the CanSat dropped below the horizon; this allowed detailed analysis. The combination of the live rover demonstration, the high quality reports and the data collected were persuasive to the judges, and Team Impulse came first in its (advanced) category.

For more information on the competition visit http://www.esa.int or to find out more about Team Impulse visit http://www.teamimpul.se/. To contact Team Impulse, Tweet or use hello@teamimpul.se.

About Newbury Electronics Ltd

Newbury Electronics Ltd started trading in 1956. A management buyout took place in 1987 and Philip King took on his role of Managing Director in 2011. The company offers a full electronic design, PCB design and layout service alongside PCB manufacture and assembly in Newbury, West Berkshire.  It employs 73 staff and is dedicated to small and medium batch PCB assembly, specialising in electronic design and manufacture incorporating SMD, SMT, surface mount, BGA, through hole, box build, soldering, test, & rework. Customers can select from electronics design and CAD layout through to printed circuit board design and fabrication, assembly and test, and the company is happy to undertake single, bespoke projects through to the design and supply of manufacture lots of up to 10,000 pcs on its automated SMD assembly lines.

As a contract electronic manufacturer (CEM), each year, the company produces in excess of over 15,000 different PCB designs for its clients, who benefit from the economies of scale built from the volume of orders processed.  For more information visit www.newburyelectronics.co.uk.