Arts & culture
- Arts & culture
- Civil & structural
- Issue 100
How ABBA Voyage was made
ABBA said they’d never tour again. Bringing them back required a technological marvel, a fully demountable arena, and an array of engineering disciplines working in tandem to make it all come together. Leonie Mercedes goes on a voyage to explore the engineering behind the show.
- Arts & culture
- Issue 99
How a photographer turned innovative engineering ideas into art
This year, the MacRobert Award – the UK’s longest-running prize for engineering innovation – celebrates its 55th anniversary. Having been commissioned to create a set of images to mark the award’s 50th anniversary in 2019, photographer Ted Humble-Smith has once again created photographs that capture the thought processes behind some of the winning innovations.
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- Arts & culture
- How I got here
Q&A: The Bakineers
Ingenia spoke to three of the eight (!) engineers who’ve starred in the Great British Bake Off: Andrew Smyth, Giuseppe Dell’Anno, and Dr Rahul Mandal, each of whom are living proof that engineering and baking happily co-exist.
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- Arts & culture
- Technology & robotics
- Innovation Watch
How AI can unearth archaeological sites
Humans from long ago have left all kinds of marks on landscapes. An AI tool from startup ArchAI, could help find these ancient traces.
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- Arts & culture
- Sports & leisure
- How I got here
- Issue 92
Q&A: Stan Jones
An opportune moment led to a career designing adventure playgrounds (and a soundsystem for Shambala Festival on the side) for Stan Jones.
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- Arts & culture
- Mechanical
- Issue 92
Reimagining the zoetrope
An installation from the 2022 Greenwich+Docklands International Festival is a life-sized, vertical zoetrope that uses time-honoured engineering principles to display a stunning three-dimensional short animation.
- Design & manufacturing
- Arts & culture
- Technology & robotics
- Issue 92
The technologies that recreate historic artworks
Did you know Churchill's wife once set a portrait of him on fire because he hated it so much? Factum Arte used modern technology to recreate it, so it lives to see another day – sorry Clementine.
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- Software & computer science
- Arts & culture
- How does that work?
- Issue 91
How do NFTs work?
Love them or hate them, NFTs took the art world by storm in 2021. But even this far into their explosion in popularity, many people still have no idea what they are and how they work.
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- Environment & sustainability
- Arts & culture
- Innovation Watch
- Issue 91
Clothes that grow with children
By the time they reach the age of two, babies go through seven clothing sizes, only adding to the fashion industry’s impact on the planet. London-based Petit Pli is on a mission to lessen the burden, with childrenswear that grows with the wearer.
- Arts & culture
- Sports & leisure
- Issue 88
Entertaining audiences of the future
In 2019, a UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Challenge Fund, Audience of the Future, was launched to explore how immersive technology could transform audience experiences. During COVID-19 they used their technology to bring these experiences into the home.
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- Environment & sustainability
- Arts & culture
- Innovation Watch
- Issue 86
From food waste to fashion
Chip[s] Board is turning potato peel into sustainable bioplastics for the fashion and interior design industries to simultaneously tackle the problems of food waste and plastic pollution.
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- Arts & culture
- How does that work?
- Issue 84
How does MQA technology work?
MQA technology captures and authenticates the sound of the original master recording in a file small enough to stream at high resolution, allowing listeners to feel that they are in the studio with the performer.
- Arts & culture
- Issue 83
Making it rain on stage
We’re not talking about the stuff outside. No – we’re talking about the theatrical kind, made specially for the production of Singin’ in the Rain. The show’s highlights are two dance sequences in the rain on a flooded stage, which posed logistical problems for its designers. Just how did they do that?
- Arts & culture
- Design & manufacturing
- Issue 82
From brass to recyclable plastic - the reinvention of musical instruments
The brightly coloured trombones made of recyclable ABS plastic, pBone, weighs less than a kilogram and costs a tenth of its metal cousin. It's driven a demand for a range of polymer-made instruments, including a trumpet.
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- Arts & culture
- Electricals & electronics
- Innovation Watch
- Issue 77
A new way to make music
A team of engineers has developed a range of instruments that is changing the way people make music. ROLI combines digital technologies and pressure-sensitive silicone so that users can generate sounds with the lightest touch.
- Arts & culture
- Maritime & naval
- Issue 74
Raising and conserving the Mary Rose
The Mary Rose Museum, shortlisted for the 2018 European Museum of the Year, houses the Mary Rose hull and thousands of Tudor artefacts that were sealed under clay and silt when it sank in 1545. Technology has helped detect, rescue, resurrect and conserve the remains of Henry VIII’s warship.
- Arts & culture
- Issue 72
From junk to spectacle
Synonymous with Glastonbury Festival, where it attracts thousands of partygoers each evening, the 15-metre-high Arcadia ‘Spider’ is an impressive, if unusual, example of engineering. Find out how the Spider was created.
- Arts & culture
- Issue 72
Music for the masses
Abbey Road Studios is one of the world’s most famous recording studios, linked with some of history’s greatest musicians and classic albums. Learn how the studios’ acoustic engineering expertise and classic equipment are being adapted to help today’s DIY musicians.
- Arts & culture
- Issue 71
The technology behind ‘The Tempest'
William Shakespeare’s The Tempest is a fantastical play that features illusion and otherworldly beings. Discover how cutting-edge technology, such as motion capture and sensors, has brought the magic and spectacle to life on stage.
- Civil & structural
- Arts & culture
- Issue 70
Design-led innovation and sustainability
The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, the new home of the Greek National Opera and the Greek National Library, boasts an innovative, slender canopy that is the largest and most highly engineered ferrocement structure in the world.
- Arts & culture
- Technology & robotics
- Issue 69
Engineering personality into robots
Robots that have personalities and interact with humans have long been the preserve of sci-fi films, although usually portrayed by actors in costumes or CGI. However, as the field of robotics develops, these robots are becoming real. Find out about the scene-stealing, real-life Star Wars droids.
- Arts & culture
- Electricals & electronics
- Issue 62
How to maximise loudspeaker quality
Ingenia asked Dr Jack Oclee-Brown, Head of Acoustics at KEF Audio, to outline the considerations that audio engineers need to make when developing high-quality speakers.