It was a pleasure to host Professor Stephen J Toope, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge at the Institute for Manufacturing on 14th March.

Professor Toope visited along with Professor Andy Neely, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Enterprise and Business Relations and former Head of the IfM; along with Professor John Dennis, Head of the School of Technology; Professor Richard Prager, Head of the Department of Engineering; and Dr Shui Lam, Secretary of the School of Technology.

The tour included an overview of IfM activities with a talk through the visitor display by Professor Tim Minshall, Head of the IfM. The group were given insights into our lab teaching and research activities in automation with a visit to the robot lab led by Alan Thorne and students Imogen Conner-Helleur and Rob Glew. This was followed by a tour of the photonics labs by Nadeem Gabbani and Professor Bill O’Neill.

The Vice-Chancellor was then given a chance to try out our virtual reality and motion capture equipment, with Dr Thomas Bohné and Bang Ming Yong showing how VR is used to teach skills for assembly. We hope that picking up and balancing a stack of IfM mugs in virtual reality will be a memorable experience!