Tim Wilmshurst was born in West Africa, where he spent his early years and started his schooling. From childhood he was fascinated with how things worked, and spent many hours making models, or taking things to pieces and hoping to put them back together again.

After playing with the idea of a career in professional music, Tim was drawn first into engineering design and then into education. He has had two spells working in the Engineering Department of the University of Cambridge, one in Botswana Polytechnic, and is currently Head of Electronics at the University of Derby. At Cambridge he had the privilege of contributing to much ground-breaking research through his designs, focussing mainly on control and instrumentation. This included work in the fields of aerospace, geotechnical, medical and motor vehicle. He also claims to have introduced the first microprocessor into the British Houses of Parliament, and the first microcontroller into the Kalahari Desert!

Tim believes in learning by doing, and aims to share his fascination with how things work, and how to devise new or different things. He has developed the Derbot project, which encourages students to develop inventive autonomous vehicles, based on a given core design.

Tim's books encapsulate his teaching and design work; all are supported on his web site, at www.embedded-knowhow.co.uk.

Tim also enjoys long distance cycling and hiking, playing the violin, and family life.