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Well, after almost 5 years of uni and 4 of volunteer work at various places, I've finally got a part time job at Autoliv Automotive Crash Centre as a high speed video camera operator and photographer. 
It got me thinking - most people have no idea what work is involved in that and I have no idea on what is done day to day in people's jobs. We have a thread asking what people do for a job but what exactly do you do?
For me It requires a mix of fiddling with a lot of specialist (& expensive) camera gear - currently we're running about $840 000 per crash just in cameras. This all has to be run from computers. Some of them are routed through fibre optic to a control room, others are mounted in the vehicles themselves and are set through laptops which are plugged in, IP addresses set, camera settings made, lights tested, unplugged and it all happens again about 5 times before the test runs.
We also adjust a huge amount of lighting, particular to each test. To run 1000 frames/second and exposures of 1/10,000th" we need loads of light so we have a 1/2 million watts on unless we need to light the inside of the car - which requires a heap of other stuff. 10 sec. under the lights will make your clothes smell, much more and they smoke.
Aside from operating the cameras themselves, we need to put them in weird places in high G situations. This requires coming up with solutions for placing them in dashboards, car seats, mounted in roof without affecting the test sensors or outcome of the test itself (dummy knees hitting cameras etc).
We work closely with engineers and welders in building suitable rigs and brackets to mount sides of vehicles for development or again cameras or associated testing equipment. Job also involves laying cables through the vehicles, fitting trims etc and then photographing the cars both before and after the crash to keep track of everything that was right or wrong about the test.
Then, aside from that, theres the enjoyment of watching an $80K vehicle slammed into a pole :P ...and checking out all the cars a few years before they're due to be released
Hope that wasn't too boring - interested in what others do. Perhaps I'm also a little excited...I LOVE MY JOB :mrgreen:
It got me thinking - most people have no idea what work is involved in that and I have no idea on what is done day to day in people's jobs. We have a thread asking what people do for a job but what exactly do you do?
For me It requires a mix of fiddling with a lot of specialist (& expensive) camera gear - currently we're running about $840 000 per crash just in cameras. This all has to be run from computers. Some of them are routed through fibre optic to a control room, others are mounted in the vehicles themselves and are set through laptops which are plugged in, IP addresses set, camera settings made, lights tested, unplugged and it all happens again about 5 times before the test runs.
We also adjust a huge amount of lighting, particular to each test. To run 1000 frames/second and exposures of 1/10,000th" we need loads of light so we have a 1/2 million watts on unless we need to light the inside of the car - which requires a heap of other stuff. 10 sec. under the lights will make your clothes smell, much more and they smoke.
Aside from operating the cameras themselves, we need to put them in weird places in high G situations. This requires coming up with solutions for placing them in dashboards, car seats, mounted in roof without affecting the test sensors or outcome of the test itself (dummy knees hitting cameras etc).
We work closely with engineers and welders in building suitable rigs and brackets to mount sides of vehicles for development or again cameras or associated testing equipment. Job also involves laying cables through the vehicles, fitting trims etc and then photographing the cars both before and after the crash to keep track of everything that was right or wrong about the test.
Then, aside from that, theres the enjoyment of watching an $80K vehicle slammed into a pole :P ...and checking out all the cars a few years before they're due to be released
Hope that wasn't too boring - interested in what others do. Perhaps I'm also a little excited...I LOVE MY JOB :mrgreen:
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