Emile Magadur, student engineer agronomist wins an international competition

Emile Magadur, 1st year engineering student, is the winner of the international competition organized by the Royal Aeronautical Society and Rolls-Royce. Congratulations !

Every year, the Toulouse branch of the RAeS (Royal Aeronautical Society) organises a competition of technical presentations in English in the field of aeronautics and space sponsored by Rolls-Royce and open to engineering students. On this occasion, two first year engineering students presented their work and one of them won the competition.

Emile Magadur dealt with a subject of biomimicry, presenting a specific application for the training of astronauts.

Cats purr. People think they do so when they are happy. Observing them and analysing the sound and signal they produce when purring shows us that actually  purring has a complex function. This observation corroborates the discovery of the benficial effects of light vibrations on the human body. Vibrations are commonly used by physiotherapists to improve heeling of affected part. The same technique is currently studied in order to enhance the training of astronauts. Today the physical training of astronauts will not enable them to endure long missions (to the moon or to Mars). A device based on variations similar to those of a cat purring is studied by the NASA.

Sihem Boubaker presented the problem of the cohabitation of birds and airplanes and the possible ways to reconcile the two !

Planes kill birds and have a big impact on biodiversity. Birds cause serious damage to airplanes. How can we reconcile human activity and wild life ? A complete study of airplane flights and birds can help find various solutions, most of them are inexpensive. In order to find the best solutions, each airport should be studied very carefully to choose the most appropriate combination.