John P. Holland (1841-1914): Developer of the Submarine
Photo Credit: Acrylic on watercolour paper by Dan Janota.-1997, drawn from a photograph in: "Submarine boats" by Richard Compton-Hall. Courtesy of Conway Maritime Press, London. Artist commissioned via: Inside Art Ltd. (Tel: 00 353 1 2842448 / 2843590)
If the marine turbine engine of Charles Parsons revolutionised sea transport, the submarine revolutionised sea warfare. It was John Holland, from Liscannor, in Co. Clare, who developed in America the first modern submarine, which could travel 800 km on the surface of the sea and 40 km submerged.
John was a teacher in Ireland until 1872, when he emigrated to the USA, where he taught in Paterson, New Jersey, until 1879. He drew up plans of submarines and, in 1879, with funds from Irish associates, built a small submarine which successfully operated submerged. He formed a company in 1895 and was awarded a contract to build a submarine for the US Navy. His first boat was a failure, but his second passed Navy tests. It had a gasoline engine for surface propulsion and an electric motor fed by storage batteries for power when submerged. The arrangement of tanks to be flooded to submerge the boat was similar to that used in modern submarines. His submarine was purchased by the US Navy in 1900.
It is believed that John Holland worked in the Albert College building of Dublin City University for some time.
Text Credit: Charles Mollan
The main aim of this scholarship programme is to allow second and third year engineering students to gain some experience in how a research project is carried out. Research projects are quite different to the projects and assignments usually carried out by undergraduate students, in the sense that the outcome is often not known in advance and the work flow of the project may be less well-defined. This means that activities such as problem formulation, literature survey, and designing a solution approach are very important in research projects. Students selected under this scholarship programme work closely with a member of academic staff (and possibly their postgraduate students) or a post-doctoral researcher in agreeing a research topic, designing a solution, and implementing that solution. Another benefit for these students is early exposure to current research areas within the School of Electronic Engineering and the Rince Research Institute, which may lead to greater focus in their choice of final year project and even postgraduate study.
Funds to support the John P. Holland Summer Scholarship Programme are provided by the School of Electronic Engineering and the Rince Research Institute of Dublin City University.
This scholarship is available for 2nd and 3rd year students in the DCU EE, ICE, ES, ME and DME programmes only.
There are two individual scholarships each valued at €2500 for 10 weeks research during the Summer period.
The decision as to who will receive the scholarships will be based on the applicants' record of academic performance to date, on the quality of the research proposals presented in the application form below, and possibly an interview. (Applicants will be notified separately if required to attend for an interview.)
Scholarships awards are conditional on all 2010/2011 examinations being passed at the first attempt.
Applicants should contact appropriate members of Electronic Engineering academic staff and/or Rince Institute researchers to discuss possible research topics prior to submitting this application form.
The research groups that have agreed to facilitate students in the 2011 placement period are:
Please fill in this form as carefully as you can. Do not leave out any of the boxes and be sure to wait for a reply after you press the submit button. As with all long forms it is a good idea to write your text in an external, editor (saving as you go) and then paste the sections into the form boxes. Note that the form can accept only plain text (in either ASCII or UTF-8 encoding). Please do not cut and paste directly from a word processor such as MS-Word or Open Office Writer. Instead, use a plain text editor such as MS-Notepad, gedit, emacs, textpad etc.
All form fields must be completed. Applications must be submitted no later than Friday, 4th March, 2011.
You will be notified of the outcome when all applications have been received and processed. This process normally takes 2-3 weeks after applications close.
If you have any queries in relation to this programme, please contact Ger Larder (Ger Larder).
