User:Shenki~enwiki/Adelaide University Engineering Society

The Adelaide University Engineering Society is a student club of the Adelaide University, located in South Australia. The society draws it's members from all schools of engineering at the University, any of whom can nominate to be on it's committee.

Each year a publication entitled Hysteresis is produced by the society, through contributions from students and staff, outlining major events from the year. The 1971 edition details some special events from the societies history; this was the year that engineering students were responsible for suspending a car under a footbridge, over a river. In the following edition, 1972, Australia's first and only person in space, Doctor Andrew Thomas, can be found. Other noteables appear in detail below.

The club runs several functions throughout the year, all having strong ties to Australian culture; these functions are detailed below.

Hysteresis
The society's annual publication was first produced in 1945 (titled the Adelaide University Engineering Society Magazine), as a medium for students to write predominantly technical articles about interesting and emerging technologies (such as colour television and jet engines). The early publications also mentioned the activities of the AUES and the engineering department for that year. In 1957 the publication was titled Hysteresis and was produced regularly (although not every year) until 1980, with the content moving towards documenting campus events and social activities as opposed to a mostly technical document.

After a twenty year hiatus the publication was revived in 2005, under the guidance of editors Julian O'Shea and Alvin Chan. This publication was a yearbook of sorts and contained input from the various schools within the University of Adelaide engineering department and articles written by students from a range of engineering related clubs and societies. The style of the publication is light hearted and the revived version feature few to no technical articles.

An archive of Hysteresis back issues is located online.

Andy 'Syd' Thomas
Thomas studied Mechanical Engineering, graduating in 1973 with first class honours. He went on to obtain his PhD in 1978, before working in the areas of fluid- and aero-dynamics at Lockheed. He was appointed a member of the NASA astronaut corps in 1993, and has since flown to space aboard the Space Shuttle four times, clocking 177 days in space aboard the Shuttles, Mir Space Station and the International Space Station.

While a student at the uni, Thomas appears in the 1972 edition of Hysteresis, as a third year. Thomas' caption for the photo of the "Mechs" for that year is captioned:

"A.S.W. (Syd) Thomas: Hides his massive intellect behind a screen of silence and hair. His abilities are varied and include designing wine labels for the A.U.E.S."

Hysteresis 1972 p 27. 

Derek Abbott
Abbott a completed a Science degree, specializing in physics and obtaining honours, at the Loughborough University of Technology, UK, before moving to Adelaide and competing his Phd, with recommendations for distinction in Electrical and Electronic Engineering.

The rest becomes slightly hazy, but quite possibly his most profound work can be found here, where Dr Derek investigates the phenomenon of how different languages mimic animal sounds.

Social
The society organises the usual social functions of a university society, including pub crawls and quiz nights. It also provides guidance for freshers.