The Future Looks Bright as MI Students Virtually Visit MoffettAS

MI Students Engaging in Virtual Tour with MoffettAS

This week MI students were the lucky recipients of a virtual tour of MoffettAS. Given the current climate of uncertainty it was gratefully appreciated by the students of Level 5 Software Development and Level 5 Engineering Technology to be offered the opportunity to learn about MoffettAS research, design and development facility. Sam, at MoffettAS, has continued to show his support of Monaghan Institute by engaging directly with course coordinators and students to demonstrate the new solutions and technology which MoffettAS work on within the local area along with offering  deployment worldwide.

Due to current Covid guidelines and efforts to restrict contacts and stay safe, the MI Level 5 Software Development students are unable to visit external sites in person. This did not deter efforts as technology and communication tools available within the MI were used to host a Virtual Tour and Site Visit. We wish to express our appreciation to Conor McLeod, MoffettAS Software Testing and Support Engineer, who is a past Graduate of Monaghan Institute, along with Adam Montgomery, MoffettAS Operations Manager, and Joonas Ryynanen, Product Development Manager.

The virtual tour commenced with Adam outlining the growth of the company and the current demand for a wide range of skillsets which MoffettAS are keen to source in the local area. Adam provided an engineer's perspective upon how an Automated Storage solution progresses from customer concept and requirements to full design specification and the combination of meeting physical infrastructure with software development and continued customer support.

Conor then provide the student group with a guided tour of the development facility, explaining the infrastructure design in significant detail and the input, process and output required for an automated storage solution. Conor provided the students with an insight of a shuttle system and outlined the mechatronic processing and IT infrastructure, explaining the importance of calibration and testing for both the quality assurance processing of the finished product but also the software development phase as the metrics and parameters for the operational function of the system must be programmed into a compatible user interface design. The student group displayed an appreciation for the depth of knowledge demonstrated by Conor and the relevance he placed upon the content they are currently learning in their Level 5 Software Development course. The transition from fundamental concepts of Mathematics, Software Development, Programming and Database design to full scale automated solution for industry was both astounding and reassuring as the students realized the potential opportunities which await them upon completion of their course to direct employment or further study.

Joonas concluded the Virtual Visit with a full interactive review of some programming code which he is currently working on. Explaining the modular development of the solution and problem solving to meet the bespoke needs of each automated system but also the continuing research and design towards product improvement. The Level 5 Software Development students then had an opportunity for a Q&A session with many keen to discover how Joonas initially started such a large-scale project and what skillset is most appealing to MoffettAS as employers. Joonas again emphasized the MoffettAS desire to employ from within the local area as much as possible and the potential to work worldwide on Software Development while maintaining a base in rural County Monaghan.

We wish to express our greatest appreciation to Sam, Joonas, Adam and Conor at MoffettAS for their time and continued support of Monaghan Institute but even more for providing the current student group with a sense of optimism for the future and demonstrating to them the potential which exists within their local area. Even in these trying times Monaghan Institute and MofettAs wish to continue making the future look bright for our young students.