Group report

This is an article published in the Winter 2017 edition of the Hayling Island U3A newsletter...

Whenever you see a container on the back of a lorry, have you ever wondered whether it has come from some exotic place around the world, what is inside it and what is its destination? Probably not, but the answers can all be found in a master programme that controls every aspect of a containers journey from its origin through to the final delivery point. The detail is astounding from the allocation of a specific container, to which lorry is to bring it to a dock, the position on the dock, its location on a ship, possibly the transfer to another ship, the order of unloading to a specific location and finally the lorry to take it to the end customer. When one considers the millions of containers on the move, the thousands of container ships sailing the seas and the multitude of ports around the world the enormity of the software programme that controls the operation can only be imagined. But this was the experience of Dinos Theophanous who gave a fascinating talk on the subject in September.

In November Maurice Winn gave us a detailed account of how the new container terminal on the Thames was designed and constructed from a green field site to a complex operational system.

On a different scale, but no less challenging, Bryan Bowen in October talked about the complexities of the Microsoft Access programme and how it has been applied to the Hayling Island U3A membership. It is this programme that ensures that you receive your local and national newsletters/magazines and allows us to claim back income taxes through gift aid.

Every meeting of the Science and Technology group is advertised at the monthly meeting and is open to all for a small nominal fee towards the cost of hiring the hall.

Paul Chapman


Go to the Science and technology group page