[candidate-sr2015] Harry Cutts for Public Interaction

[Harry Cutts]

Hi all,

I'm applying for the Public Interaction role on the new committee.

If you don't know me, I'm a Computer Science undergraduate in my final year at the University of Southampton. I've been an active member of the Southampton branch for four years. In that time I have: mentored two teams; developed the old Manual Control Interface and the Robot Simulator [0]; and helped out at Tech Days, three competitions, and two Smallpeice/SR/University summer schools.

Having said that, the focus of this role is communication and outreach. I have quite a bit of experience in these areas, too, having represented SR at many outreach events. These include National Science and Engineering Week, Southampton UCAS days (where Alistair and I talked to nervous sixth-formers awaiting interviews), and most recently the Big Bang Fair in 2014. I've written an article about us on my former employer's blog [1], and our Python tutorial [2]. Outside SR, I gave a lightning talk on my summer project at CERN [3] which came 3rd for best presentation at the event.

The way I see it, the role of Public Interaction is about two things: building a high media profile for SR, and using that profile to further our aims.

To build our media profile, I will:

* continue the use of our social media presence,
* look into having an SR AUA (Ask Us Anything) on Reddit (possibly in /r/robotics),
* invite relevant news organisations well in advance of the competition (making use of any contacts our volunteers already have), and
* ensure that press releases get sent out promptly after events.

Now on to the second part: using our profile to further our aims. This will hopefully happen directly, as our PR encourages young people to compete or investigate a career in engineering. However, I believe that we should focus on attracting the attention of volunteers and sponsors (both of which we need more of). To this end, I will work to improve the "How to Help" section of the website, and ensure that our PR points people to it and encourages them to contribute. This could fit in very well with Tom's proposal of a 'Volunteer Handbook'.

Being on the committee, for me, will be about more than my role; there's also a more general responsibility, which is especially important at this time. As a committee member, I will do all I can to support the running of this year's competition. I will also assist with the charity application, once we've achieved consensus on the charity's constitution and trustees. Finally, I will push for the committee to be as open and transparent as possible in everything it does.

These elections are unusual in that they are happening between Kickstart and the competition. This is not the ideal time of year for an election, so I would support having early elections this summer instead of this time next year. As some of you may be aware, I may be emigrating to the United States in October. If I am still on the committee at this point, I intend to resign.

Thanks for reading my manifesto. Please vote for me!

Harry Cutts

[0] https://studentrobotics.org/docs/programming/simulator
[1] http://www.snowflakesoftware.com/2013/08/student-robotics/
[2] https://studentrobotics.org/docs/tutorials/python
[3] http://cds.cern.ch/record/1750935?ln=en