Profile

Hello, my name is Rohin.

I live in the West Midlands. I went to University at Coventry (back in 2012, which feels like ages ago now!) for my undergraduate degree, and Loughborough for my masters degree.

I grew up in the South near London, in a town called Guildford. I have a project car in my garage that I try to work on whenever I can, it’s a Mazda MX-5. One day I’m hoping to drive in one the racetrack. I love the convertible roof, makes you feel very cool when the sun is out driving along with some music on. In my spare time I also enjoy recycling/upcycling and reusing, I love how creatively you can make new things out of old things! Making things is really satisfying to me, it’s quite relaxing and you feel very accomplished when it’s finished!

I’m a Project Engineer at WMG, University of Warwick. I manage the Flexible Module Build lab at WMG where we make Battery Modules, which are the building blocks of Battery Packs.

My work involves researching how batteries for electric vehicles are made, and how we can do it smarter! That means using robots where appropriate and analysing data, or using software to recognise patterns and improve processes. We have a small prototype assembly line in our lab, with some robots to do some of the work for us. This is because they’re faster and safer. The batteries we make can be used in all sorts of different vehicles, from passenger cars to sports cars to buses to diggers.

This is one of our robots, called the cell loading system:

It tests cylindrical cells and then puts the good ones into the battery the correct way up. A human could do this, but it would be very boring and this machine is a lot faster!

To give you an idea of what a battery module looks like, here’s a AAA battery that you might use in your TV remote, next to an 18650 cylindrical cell, with a small battery module made of cylindrical cells:

18650 is for the size. It means 18mm in diameter, and 65.0mm in height.

For those wondering what the images in my gallery are, the first is a picture of me telling some very important people about some of the work we do, which is also in a news story below. The second is an image of a weld on top of a cylindrical cell under the microscope, a very colourful example! The third and fourth are of a robot display I helped make for the Coventry Transport Museum, in a special exhibition called “Our Future Moves”. There’s more in the other news story below. The fifth and sixth images are of when I’ve been lucky to go abroad for work! I went to Shanghai for 3 weeks and that’s a picture of the bay there. I also presented some research at a conference in Italy.

I’ve been in several news stories that WMG has put out:

https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/22m_battery_and/

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/wmg/mediacentre/news/newsitem?id=8a17841a7b066011017b2b206cfd5af3&tag=HVM%20Catapult

My days can vary dramatically based on what project I’m working on or what research I’m involved in.

I might be testing our lab equipment or building a battery.

I might be running an experiment, or mentoring some students.

I might be visiting a company to see what equipment they use or teach them about ours.

In our lab we work with lots of different partners and companies making batteries that come in all shapes and sizes. Having all this variety makes the job really exciting for me, I wake up happy to go to work, which is one of the most important things when it’s time for you to find your job.