Creating access routes for researchers to mechanical workshop facilities: the Open Access Mechanical Workshop pilot initiative

A key part of experimental research often includes the design and build of research apparatus and a new pilot initiative at The University of Sheffield aims to bring researchers and academics back to the heart of the process, with hands-on access to a fully stocked and overseen mechanical workshop.

Most apparatus for research projects are designed by the researcher and passed to technical staff for manufacture. Building on successes such as the student-orientated iForge and the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) training centre targeted towards apprenticeships and professional development, a new initiative has been funded by Research England to enhance research culture. This £18,600 project, led by Dr Richard Hodgkinson, and in collaboration with Mr Andy Patrick (New Caledonia Workshop supervisor) and Mr Steve Mason (Electronic and Electrical Engineering Departmental Technical Manager), aims to bridge the gap between researchers and technical staff by providing researchers the ability to facilitate their work whilst alongside gaining valuable hands-on engineering skills and knowledge in a technical workshop setting.

Richard who is now a National Fellowships in Fluid Dynamics research fellow in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering said “I found during my PhD and subsequent postdoctoral posts that despite being keen to learn mechanical engineering skills and be hands on with the creation of required apparatus, no formal access routes to workshops then existed. This necessitated the use of basic tools in disparate laboratories or building equipment at home despite the clear enthusiasm I felt of technical staff wishing to pass on their skills and knowledge to truly interested students and research staff”.

This pilot initiative aims to change this: the award is funding the creation of the “Open Access Mechanical Workshop”, a well-stocked and designated space within the New Caledonia Workshop in the faculty of engineering for researchers to use for simple, safe construction and modification of research apparatus. This environment breaks down the current culture divide, aiming to facilitate iterative responsive and proof-of-concept facilitated research, knowledge transfer, and the embedding of practically skilled individuals into the local research community. It also frees up technical staff for more complex tasks and substantiates the notion that “Sheffield makes”. This initiative is not limited to basic hand tools, either: with access to two mills and two lathes in the space and a cohort of 8 PhD students postdocs and staff being funded to attend AMRC training centre courses in manual turning and milling to enable their use of these machines.

Luc Dewulf, a 3rd year PhD student in the Department of Chemical and Biological engineering and one of those on the training courses commented “My PhD research involves many lab equipments that I had to alter or modify to suit my research purposes: professional AMRC training and an open access mechanical workshop will be immensely valuable! Besides the ability to rapidly iterate, the education and learning benefits will add great hard skills to any PhD graduate from our institution”.

Dr David Gregory, a new lecturer in the same department also on the courses, adds “the OA mechanical workshop will be an invaluable resource to my research group I am assembling - we already have some new attachments for our research 3D printers we wish to fabricate and try. I can also see this resource being a great parallel for additive manufacturing researchers across the university to conventional manufacturing too”.

At the time of publication, new tools and a lathe are presently arriving and the initiative has already supported a General Engineering Education undergraduate project to build and iterate an open-source tensile test instrument (shown in image), something that arguably could not have happened without it.