Bob will describe how his life path from Schoolboy Electronics Enthusiast to Professional Engineer and Senior Engineering Educator has involved successions of projects of increasing complexity.  Bob says “I just love doing projects! My schoolboy electronics hobby led me to a sandwich degree, that is, an engineering degree with thirty months of integrated industrial experience working in avionics in the UK Aircraft Industry. This included the avionics for several then state-of-the-art aircraft including the Concord, the Harrier Jump Jet and the DC10. All very exciting!”

The final stage in his initial formation involved PhD study working on a UK Ministry of Defence Contract relating to visual perception when using image intensifiers. This involved mathematical modelling, the development of simulation displays and human performance measurement.

Success in his PhD led to his initial appointment to a University Lectureship and his lifelong research into machine vision. He will share some projects including applications in astronomy, remote sensing and industrial measurements as well as developments in techniques including pattern recognition based on aspects of human vision and nonlinear filtering.

He has also been involved in a wide range of professional and educational activities including the supervision of the research of numerous undergraduate and postgraduate students. These include 27 Masters and 14 PhDs, the publication of over 150 papers and the winning of the Supreme New Zealand Engineering Excellence award in 2013. He has also served on numerous professional panels and degree accreditation teams.

Finally, he will explain in some detail the project that has led to the establishment of the Massey University spin-off and award-winning company Veritaxa Limited. His team designs and manufactures automatic, (slightly!) intelligent digital microscopes, called the Classifynder. The main use is in counting and classifying pollen on slides and has many applications including, climate research and honey analysis. They cost about $30,000 each and we have supplied about thirty to users in countries that include the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, South Africa, Germany, Austria and Crete.