Our Future Moves - Exhibition Tour - Video and audio transcripts

Hi my name is Liz Chard-Cooper. I'm the collections manager at Coventry Transport Museum and the lead curator for Our Future Moves. This is a major piece of work for us it's taken about 12 months of research and we've worked with well over 50/60 different companies in and around Coventry and Warwickshire looking at what they think the future might hold and what they're working on today and City Council have been a major part of that work as well. There are lots of different themes that are part of this exhibition, so the first thing we look at is why we're bothering to do this exhibition in this location and Coventry and Warwickshire is a major hub for all the research and development that's happening not just in the automotive industry but lots of other transport related industries. We then have a look at smarter cities about how we're going to travel in the future and what that might look like in terms of how, physically, you're going to get from place to place or what type of journeys that you might be looking at. We then have a look at how businesses are going to get their goods to and fro and we have another look at the environmental side of things, we look at new technologies and new fuel systems that might be coming online as well. So we then have a little look at the future of space technology and how businesses are thinking about how we can make a greener space going forward - how are you going to talk to the satellites that are already up there and how are you going to retrieve them and recycle them in the future - and all of that work is also happening in and around this area. So our universities in Coventry and Warwickshire are also looking at what the future might look like with their students so a lot of their work with their graduates are looking at developing technology that will be influencing what we do on a day-to-day basis and also thinking about how when they hit the world of work what they're actually going to be interested in looking at and changing and we're also talking to our local students from secondary schools as well because they are the next generation as well of creative thinkers. One of the great things about being a student doing engineering or any of the stem related subjects in the two local universities, Coventry and Warwick, is that you get to do lots of interesting projects along the way and that builds your skills but it also gives you an opportunity to practice and get into contact with people within the business world. So for Warwick University, they have lots of different engineering teams so they've got a submarine-making engineering team so they take that, they build that every year and they race it around the world against other university teams. Both of the universities also are heavily involved with formula student as well whether that's a green technology with e-cars or whether it's even more exciting things like the little EV car that we've got which is autonomous as well so they program that car and it runs around that track on its own so that's a big design challenge for them. And they work with lots of different companies in and around Coventry and Warwickshire so we have lots and lots of heritage when it comes to engineering companies including companies that make everything from bicycles through to cars to all the little widgets that we take for granted every day. One of the companies that we use and have given us a loan has been Sarginsons and Pashley's cycles. So Pashley cycles are really famous as a name within the cycling world but they also people that make the Boris bikes and our version of the Boris bikes which is the West Midlands cycle hire that you'll see on display but what's really exciting for me is not only do you have the companies making the cycles here but you also have all the charging infrastructure being made here by Sarginsons, which is a Coventry-based company so again everything is very local and really really close to our exhibition space.

Technology is something that we see every day but we don't actually spot it very often if it's done correctly. This traffic bollard everywhere but it's solar panelled on the top so it means that the power that generates, that light that illuminates it for you to keep you safe while you're travelling is all nice and green and environmentally friendly. It also means it's a lot easier for the city council and the lighting teams to replace when something goes wrong and it gets knocked over because it means that they don't have to isolate that electricity flow. City councils are also thinking really carefully about how they can introduce all the different new infrastructure into the city that you need. So if you think about charging electric vehicles that takes quite a lot of power so you need to think about how your street looks and what the best solution is for that electric charging point to be. So what we have is a large selection of the ones that are out there in the market at the moment you might find little ones for domestics which you can plug on the side of your house takes a couple of hours maybe even less for an electrician to fit and it's really low cost now compared to what it was five years ago. But then if you think about the road that you live on what solution would work best for you do you have lots of street lights but no parking? Do you have street parking or drives? All of these things need to be thought about when you're looking at the infrastructure that you're going to put in to help people switch to electric vehicles. So what some of the companies locally have done have they created new systems for that so you can buy a charger that will fit onto a lamp post and it plugs straight into the power for the lamp post itself so again you don't have the disruption of that road being dug up for another channel and another cable to be laid it goes straight in and it's nice and simple. A lot of thought has been put into and is continuing to be put into by companies and institutions in and around the Coventry and Warwickshire area, about how we're going to travel looking forward into the future. So different ways of tackling this might be appropriate in different areas or different cities and locations. It could be that you need to think about micro-mobility so it could be that you think about little journeys that individuals are taking in Coventry one of the options that you're going to have going forward is the very light railway which will be up in operation within the next few years and that will take you in and through the middle of the city centre. The clever thing with this compared to trams is it should be a little bit easier to maintain going forward and it will be easier to install as well because the rails themselves sit on top of the actual surface not bend into it which makes it a lot easier for installing quickly and also repairing quickly as well. It could be that we're all going to be using autonomous pods that are really large so it could be like our 12-seater pods we're all going to be getting on autonomous buses and travelling around in the future.

So within our exhibition, we have several robots on display and our robots are not there to replace the humans they're actually there to help the humans do the job and in a lot of factories, they're referred to as robot colleagues instead. So the robots might well be doing jobs that we don't want our humans to do in our workforce if we can help it. It could be fetching and carrying so it could be lifting and moving different types of machinery or parts to and from different parts of the factory or it could be that they're lifting and carrying or making batteries which go into things like our electric vehicles. all of those things might be slightly hazardous for humans but if a robot can do it well why not.

One of the lovely stories that we talk about within the exhibition is Skyfarer. Now Skyfarer is a really good example of why we're here and why we're talking about this subject right now in this location. Skyfarer was set up by a gentleman who is a Coventry University graduate. Through the university, he learned how to build drones how to fly them and how to maintain them and now he has his own business, Skyfarer, which actually is looking at delivery into remote locations so taking that technology and making it benefit humankind. So not just how you're going to get your parcel with your favourite thing from Amazon to your house but also how would you get urgent medical supplies into remote countries and remote terrain that you can't get vehicles into. Skyfarer and drones might be one of those ways forward that we look at in the future.

One of the other stories that we look at is our urban airport and Coventry has been selected to be a trial location for that urban airport product. So what that is is basically a couple of containers of gear that comes into your location and can create what will be a drone airport and take-off and landing facility that's a really useful idea to test not just for a city dwelling kind of environment but also for a remote area. So for example if there's an earthquake somewhere and you need to get lots of supplies to somewhere you could bring in those two containers full of gear put them down set up your airport really quickly and get those drones working and helping those people that really need it in short succession. It's a really fabulous piece of technology and I’m really pleased that Coventry is going to be that test bed.