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Daniele Capocci - BrightSparks Class of 2017 Award Winner

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RS Components partnered with Electronics Weekly on its inaugural EW BrightSparks programme to celebrate the achievements of the UK’s most talented young electronics design engineers and help to inspire and encourage new entrants to the industry.

Dan Capocci joined Nissan Technical Centre initially on an industrial placement from Hertfordshire University whilst undertaking a motorsport degree. On completing his degree, Dan opted to return as a junior contract engineer, although graduate engineer would have been another option for him.

Dan has expertise in several areas of Engine Control Unit (ECU) testing on vehicles; his current responsibilities include cluster/combimeter testing and development. Dan is also leading the Head-Up Display (HUD) test function preparing equipment (including utilising Arduino’s) and test methods for measuring the function and performance of both Nissan and competitors HUDs.

Dan works as Junior Contract Engineer in the ITS Test Department at NTCE (Nissan Technical Centre Europe).

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Component testing

We caught up with Dan Capocci at the EW BrightSparks Award Winners’ lunch at the Houses of Parliament to find out more about his background and how he got into engineering. Dan’s degree was in Mechanical Engineering with Motor Sport, which led nicely into his work at Nissan, phasing into electrical engineering and electrical testing over the last couple of years. Dan is basically in charge of component testing, mainly for combimeters, but also some other ECUs for automotive applications. This work is mainly on current production vehicles, but Dan also gets involved with future development too. It involves anything from testing LEDs, all the way up to the software logic behind average field consumption and other features in the combimeters themselves.

Formula 1 fan

Like many youngsters, Dan grew up with the aspiration of getting involved in motorsports, particularly Formula 1. As he grew up, however, he realised it would be wise to take the more realistic direction of automotive engineering for the mass market. Additionally, Dan went from a purely mechanical background to developing his electronics engineering skill set because he recognised that “everything is leading towards electronics nowadays, or some sort of digital control.”

Dan found it quite difficult at school to just sit there and read a book: “I found it boring, I am not going to lie about it. But as soon as I started doing more hands-on work and got to build projects – actually got to experience things, to touch and feel them – that is when I started to enjoy engineering a lot more. Electronics is like a black art really – you sit there and look at something and think how does that even work? You can’t imagine it to begin with, but as you learn and pick up ‘tinker tips’, you can actually build your way through a problem, then build a full system and understand how it works and how to apply it to something else.”

Encouraging the next generation

Like all our EW BrightSparks, Dan believes it is massively important to encourage younger generations into careers in engineering. He thinks part of the problem is to do with the perception of engineers: “Kids might perceive an engineer to be one thing, but actually let’s educate them about how engineers impact all our lives, starting with simple examples such as having an iPhone, or an electric toothbrush. Somewhere out there, electronic engineers designed and created those products – and everything else!”

In saying this, Dan also points out that this does seem to be improving since his time at school, which he puts down to STEM-related activities: “You do not have to go far for a STEM event, or can have someone come to your school. I think it is ideal. I have been involved in the past in STEM activities and seeing the enthusiasm and simple entertainment you can give young people from a couple of plastic bottles, some wooden skewers and some wheels. It is amazing; I used to love things like that as a kid.

Daniele is living the dream of a lot of engineers working on automotive design. It must be very rewarding seeing projects and applications that he has worked on being implemented into cars and used every day by the people driving them."

Lindsley Ruth, CEO, Electrocomponents

What’s next?

We asked Dan where he thinks his career will take him: “In the short-term I would like to continue to progress at Nissan, working towards a lead engineer position, and potentially management in the longer-term.”

Dan also enjoys a wide range of personal projects, from renovating his house, to “a car project in the planning stages”, to manufacturing wedding favours – a project which developed from making favours for his own wedding.

Rather refreshingly, Dan’s attitude to life is: “If you have an idea, give it a go. What is the worst that can happen? If you fail, you pick yourself up and start again.”

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