Students from the University of Southampton have won a national competition thanks to a revolutionary helmet they designed for use by soldiers on the battlefield.
The student team won the Project Arduino competition organised by Thales, a leading engineering and technology company. The contest required the students to build a piece of equipment, using the Thales Arduino open-source electronic microprocessor platform, which tied in with the Thales business areas â transport, aerospace, defence and security.
The students designed an innovative helmet that monitors soldiers' heartbeat and temperature along with other factors such as their body position. Izidor Flajsman, Priank Cangy, Rasmus Valling, and Jonas Svedas from Electronics and Computer Science worked on the microprocessing circuits, while third-year MEng Mechanical Engineering student Erik Kovalan used the University's 3D printing facilities to create a robust casing for the technology. The team had two weeks to work on their design and produce a video showcasing their invention.
âWe were asked to come up with an idea that reflected Thales work. The company is a big defence contractor so we thought a multi-purpose helmet would be worth developing,â? says Erik.
Professor William Powrie, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and the Environment, says: âIt is great to see our students using their skills to tackle and solve real world problems, and working so effectively as a team to innovate successfully. This is an excellent achievement.â?
Professor Neil White, Head of Electronics and Computer Science, adds: âThis is a fantastic achievement and says a great deal about the calibre of the students and the innovative research being produced at Southampton.â?
Teams from six universities (Brunel, Manchester, Surrey, Sussex and University College London) took up the challenge and after some hard-fought technological battles that whittled the six campus winners down to three, the winner was chosen by a public vote.
Researchers from the University of Southampton are part of an international collaboration that will develop the worldâs first culturally specific Arabic symbol dictionary.
The Qatar National Research Fund has awarded a $891,000 grant to Dr Mike Wald and his Access Technologies Team in the Web and Internet Science Research Group at the University of Southampton; the Rumailah Hospital, in Qatar; and Mada â the Qatar Assistive Technology Centre, in Doha; to produce the dictionary.
The collaboration will be combining expertise to create the symbol dictionary that will take into account the diverse nature of the language and how it is used in difference social situations.
Language dictionaries supported by symbols and pictures are widely available in American and British English with many thousands of images representing vocabulary, but currently there is no freely available culturally specific Arabic symbol dictionary.
Dr Mike Wald, the projectâs Principal Investigator, said: âWe are delighted to be part of this international team that will be pulling together resources from across the globe to develop a new Arabic symbol dictionary.
âThe ability to communicate is very important and requires skills that are not always available to everyone due to disability, lack of literacy and lack of language skills when travelling. A person visiting an Arabic-speaking nation without access to the language or knowledge of the alphabet may find it hard to communicate without help.
âWe hope that our research will use crowdsourcing to identify appropriate imagery to build a symbol dictionary of frequently-used words based on Modern Standard Arabic,â? added Mike.
Maha Al Mansouri, Deputy CEO of Mada, said: âAccess to technology for Arabic speaking people with disabilities is largely hindered by the lack of availability of tools and resources in the Arabic language. That is why we have made it an absolute priority to work with our partners to create the necessary tools to empower people with different disabilities throughout Arabic speaking communities all around world.
âHaving the opportunity to work with researchers at the University of Southampton on a project that is funded by the Qatar National Research Fund is exactly the kind of partnership we envision going forward, and is reflective of the high standards that we strive to maintain throughout all of our research and development work.â?
ECS students are developing their niche technology skills with generous support from Connectus, the specialist technology recruitment company.
The sponsorship from Connectus is part of their support of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, and will help strengthen the aims and objectives of the Southampton University Cyber Security Society (SUCSS), which is run from ECS by Joel Clark, President and Co-Founder.
SUCSS is committed to improving its members' employability and understanding of the cyber security industry, as well as helping individuals to protect themselves online. The skills developed within this Society are crucial to modern businesses, with the global cyber security industry expected to grow at a rate of 10 per cent per year over the next five years (according to a recent report).
Investment into cyber security is essential; companies continue to store more of their own data and sensitive customer information online, and the regulations and threats are increasing. The skills developed within societies such as SUCSS are a vital first step for many to enter the cyber security industry. This is a key reason for Connectus's support of the Society, which includes the provision of new servers for Society members to use and increase their technical skills.
Joel Clark explains that Society meetings not only involve sharing new hacking techniques and embracing security challenges, but also help members become more aware of their personal online security. "After our session on hacking passwords, around 90 per cent of our members will change their password immediatelyâ?, he said. He described the different lengths of time it would take to hack passwords, purely based on the number of characters and mixture of numbers and letters used. It was recommended to have over eight mixed characters in a password, resulting in many members believing their passwords were inadequate protection.
Connectus commented: "Connectus is proud to sponsor the SUCSS. We are delighted that our investment has already given the Society more capabilities and look forward to supporting its members throughout their future cyber security careers."
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For further information on this news story contact: Joyce Lewis (tel. 023 8059 5453; j.k.lewis@ecs.soton.ac.uk)
Eighty-six companies will take part in this yearâs Careers Fair organized by the Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering at the University of Southampton.
With 25 per cent of the companies attending for the first time and more companies than ever wanting to take part, there is no shortage of choice for students who are aiming to work in some of the UKâs leading and most innovative companies.
The Fair takes place on Tuesday 11 February at the Universityâs Highfield Campus and runs from 11 am to 3.30 pm in the Garden Court and Mountbatten Buildings. The companies attending will be offering graduate jobs, summer internships and industrial placements, and aiming to build awareness of their opportunities with students who may not be entering the jobs market until 2015 or beyond.
âThis is a great opportunity for students to get a really wide-ranging view of the engineering and technology industry,â said Joyce Lewis, Careers Fair Director, âas well as to find out about specific careers and opportunities in many different sectors.
âThe companies are taking part because they are aware of the high quality of our students and their ability to innovate and support the development of future technologies. There are exciting careers to be built in these industries and we very much value our strong links with companies and the excellent relationships built up over time. Many of the company stands will include Southampton alumni, demonstrating the contribution that our students and graduates are making to the UKâs industrial and business success.â
The Fair is the centrepiece of the Facultyâs annual careers and employability programme, but activities throughout the year, such as conferences, employer visits and presentations, project sponsorships, and mentoring support, are designed to ensure that students are aware of the opportunities open to them, and best prepared to gain the position that they want.
Students attending the Fair can expect very strong interest from leading employers across the technology industries and from companies that are seeking excellent graduates with high-level competence in technology, including computer science, engineering, and the physical sciences.
âIt is very exciting to see the number of companies that are keen to employ our students,' said Professor Neil White, Head of Electronics and Computer Science. âThe environment we have created here continues to ensure that companies want to promote their opportunities to our students. For our part we do our best to increase our studentsâ awareness of career opportunities, right from their very first week at the University. We want to prepare them to find the job they want, and raise their aspirations of future achievement.â
Companies attending this year's Fair are: Accenture Altera Allied Motion Amadeus Analog Devices AppsBroker.com ARM Atmel BAE Systems BAE Systems Detica Bloomberg BskyB Cambridge Consultants Cambridge Network Captec Cascoda CBSbutler Centrax Gas Turbines Chemring Technology Solutions Connectus Critical Software Technologies Deloitte Dialog Semiconductor ECM EMC Ericsson TV FactSet FDM Fidelity Datanet Fidessa Finisar G Research Gradcracker Halma IBM IET Imagination Technologies Invensys IT Dev Jive Software JP Morgan Korusys Lascar Electronics Lockheed Martin London Power Associates M&G Investments Microfocus Murata Power Solutions MWR Infosecurity National Instruments NETbuilder Netcraft New Voice Media Ocado Openmarket PA Consulting Parker Hannifin PWC Radio Tactics Real VNC Samsung Research UK Schlumberger Selex ES Smarkets Snowflake Software Sony Professional Softiron SPI Lasers Spirax Sarco STFC Surface Technology International Sungard Financial Systems TARGETjobs Teach First Tekever Telesoft Technologies Thales True Clarity Triggered Messaging TTP Group Ultra Electronics-Nuclear Control Systems Winton Capital Management Yahoo! Year in Industry Zurich
The Fair is open to all students and graduates of the University of Southampton.
For further information about the Fair, or about the FPSE Careers Hub activity, contact Joyce Lewis; tel.+44(0)23 8059 5453.
EMECS-thon creates the opportunity for students to showcase their skills by creating an embedded system in 48 hours based on their own idea.
The international contest returns to the University of Southampton this weekend (31 January - 2 February) hosted by Electronics and Computer Science (ECS), with the Gala ceremony taking place on Sunday 2 February, at 17.00, in the Mountbatten Building 53/4025.
EMECS-thon is running for the third time and this year's event will simultaneously unite six leading universities in Germany, Norway, United Kingdom, Romania, Palestine and Russia. The event is organized by students and alumni of Erasmus Mundus in Embedded Computing Systems (EMECS) Masters programme, with the support of academia, local NGOs and significant companies from the embedded systems industry, such as ARM, Atmel, Xilinx, Microchip and Nordic Semiconductor.
âWe are proud to have managed to bring together six top universities worldwide, the biggest companies in the field as our partners, and more than 125 participants, demonstrating the spirit of EMECS-thon, and raising it to a new level," said Angel Codrean, Global Co-ordinator. "We invite you to attend the Gala event when students will receive their awards.â?
Full details are on the event website: http://EMECS-thon.org/ or contact the Co-ordinators:
Southampton RoboGals will be hosting a national event in February, which brings together RoboGals chapters from across the UK.
Robogals is an international organisation run by volunteers, with the core aim of encouraging girls to consider a future in engineering. The Southampton Chapter of RoboGals was established last year and is based in Electronics and Computer Science. Next month, from 8 to 10 February, Southampton RoboGals will host the annual UK SINE (Seminars Inducting New Executive-committees) Conference which trains new committee members of chapters from across the country.
The Conference is set up to allow for training, setting goals for the new year, meeting and socialising with other Robogals members, and sharing knowledge and experience between chapters.
Training sessions will be led by organisations such as National Instruments and Teach First, with talks coming from special guest speakers and University lecturers. Awards such as 'Biggest Impact' and 'Best Teamwork' will be presented to the Chapters that have achieved great success in the last year.
As well as being onsite at the University of Southampton's Highfield Campus, Robogals Southampton sponsor Snowflake Software is kindly allowing the participants to use their facilities in addition to hosting a workshop. Included in the weekend's activities will be a fantastic 'Great Gatsby'-themed formal evening boat party, launching from the seaport.
Robogals Southampton would like to thank Robogals International, our Chapter sponsors, and the department of Electronics and Computer Science for making this event possible, it promises to be a huge success and an enjoyable time for all involved.
Some of the UKâs most exciting and cutting-edge aerospace and autonomous technology are being showcased in Southampton next week.
The University of Southampton is hosting the Autonomous and Advanced Systems Showcase event on Monday 3 February, where industry, government and academia will explore commercial and research opportunities to deliver the next generation of aerospace, marine, defence and other advanced systems technology to keep the UK at the forefront of these important industries.
The Rt Hon David Willetts, Minister of State for Universities and Science, will deliver the keynote speech followed by a range of prestigious speakers including Sir Brian Burridge, Vice President of Strategic Marketing at Finmeccanica UK, and Michael Pickwoad, Production Designer from Dr Who, who will talk about his creative process and the relationship between science and fiction.
Professor Mark Spearing, Pro Vice-Chancellor (International) at the University of Southampton, says: âAutonomous and intelligent systems are a key technology for the future of aerospace and a range of industries. As one of the worldâs leading Aerospace universities, we have combined our technical excellence with our enterprising nature to form an Aerospace University Industry Sector Team to play our part in global aerospace innovation and reinforce Southamptonâs position as a vital aerospace network hub.
âThe key to making progress in this fast moving area is to have a vibrant interaction between the user community and the researchers and developers of the technologies and ideas. We believe this event, with wide engagement by universities, government and industry, encourages such interactions to occur.â?
The showcase will include both industry and University technology stands and live demonstrations of cutting-edge autonomous and intelligent systems, including unmanned aerial vehicles and underwater devices to help in the surveillance, maintenance and management of our society and infrastructure.
Ben Jones, Aerospace Collaboration Manager at the University of Southampton, says: âAutonomous and intelligent systems arenât just new technology; they are the next generation of smarter, safer and more environmentally friendly transportation systems. They are also an important element of other markets, medicine for example, where we are exhibiting research on patient rehabilitation.â?
The event will also include tours of the Universityâs Zepler Institute, the largest photonics and electronics institute in the UK, and engineering facilities including the RJ Mitchell Wind Tunnel, reverb and anechoic chambers and a live demonstration of active noise control of a Q400M aircraft.
The showcase is sponsored by the Farnborough Aerospace Consortium (FAC) and the Aerospace, Aviation and Defence Knowledge Transfer Network (AAD KTN).
Two professors from the University of Southampton have been awarded highly prestigious Wolfson Research Merit Awards by the Royal Society, the UKâs national academy of science.
Professor Bashir Al-Hashimi and Professor Damon Teagle have received their awards in recognition of outstanding contribution to their respective fields.
Jointly funded by the Wolfson Foundation and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), the Wolfson Research Merit Award recognises talented scientists of outstanding achievement and potential.
Professor Bashir Al-Hashimi:
Professor Al-Hashimi, the founder and director of the Universityâs Pervasive Systems Research Centre as well as Associate Dean (Research) for the Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering, is leading the £5.6 million EPSRC programme called PRiME â Power-efficient, Reliable, Many-core Embedded systems. The project brings together four world-leading universities and five industrial partners, to address major research challenges in future high performance and low-energy embedded computing systems.
He says: âI am honoured and delighted to receive this Award. I am also proud that this Award comes in recognition of my research in electronics and software which has a tremendous impact on life - from the internet and consumer electronics to healthcare and transportation.â?
Professor Al-Hashimi has a worldwide reputation for research into energy-efficient, reliable and testable digital hardware and has a strong track record of innovation in system-level power management and power-constrained testing of systems-on-chip used in handheld devices. Last year, he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. He also has a long association with the innovative microelectronics group ARM, which sponsors his professorial chair and for whom he is the co-director of the ARM-ECS research centre.
In an industrial and academic career spanning 25 years, Professor Al-Hashimi has authored 300 publications, authored, co-authored and edited five research books in topics ranging from electronic circuits simulation to low-power test of integrated circuits, system-on-chip to energy-efficient embedded systems. He is very proud of the career development of his students (successfully supervising 30 PhD theses), many of whom now hold senior positions in industry and academia worldwide.
Professor Damon Teagle:
Damon Teagle is a Professor of Geochemistry and Director of Research for Ocean and Earth Science at the University of Southampton. He is also the Deputy Director
(Research) of the newly-launched Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute. Professor Teagle has wide ranging scientific interests spanning economic ore mineralisation, atmospheric particles, to public understanding of environmental policy. He is expert in the formation and evolution of the ocean crust, which covers more than 60 per cent or our planet, and the influence of hydrothermal seawater-basalt exchange on global chemical budgets, such as the carbon cycle and the chemistry of the oceans.
His Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award is to further understanding of the timing, duration and extent of exchange on the vast ocean ridge flanks through radiometric dating of hydrothermal minerals recovered from the ocean floor by scientific ocean drilling.
The University of Southampton was one of six universities around the world which took part in EMECS-thon 2014 last weekend.
EMECS-thon is an international technical event where students use their engineering skills to design, build and implement projects based on their own ideas over a 48-hour period.
This year's event took place between 31 January and 2 February in six technical universities worldwide: Technical University of Kaiserslautern in Germany, Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Norway, University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Russia, Al Quds University in Palestine, and "Politehnicaâ? University of Timisoara in Romania.
Around 150 students organized in more than 50 teams took part in EMECS-thon 2014. After a weekend of activity the global EMECS-thon guru prize was won by Snow Crash from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, with a project consisting of an automatic chess machine.
The local winners in Southampton were:
⢠âBest Internet of Things implementationâ? award - won by team 'Dynamic Integrated Synergy Solutions (DISS)' who built a Home Camera Monitor System;
⢠âBest Technical implementationâ? award - won by team 'Needs more lasers' with a project Laser Harp;
⢠âBest commercial ideaâ? award - won by team 'Clinomaniacs' who built Human Follower Robot;
⢠âPeopleâs choiceâ? award - won by team 'Four Engineers' who built a Physical version of Pong Game.
The event was organized by EMECS students and alumni with the support of academia in EMECS, all the participating universities, Erasmus Mundus Association, Edelvais, IEEE Southampton student branch and companies such as Atmel, ARM, Xilinx, Microchip, Nordic Semiconductor, Digi-Key and Sparkfun. Crispin Semmens of ARM attended the event in ECS and took part in the prizegiving, and Dr Basel Halek of ECS was a member of the judging team.
âWe are happy to congratulate all participants for attending and surviving a 48-hours embedded systems marathon. "We admire the great ideas that ended up implemented during EMECS-thon 2014 and we thank our partners and supporters for making this event a triumph. We are looking forward to an even more successful EMECS-thon 2015,â? said Angel Codrean, EMECS-thon Global Coordinator).
Access to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects could be opened up for students with learning disabilities or print disabilities such as visual impairments and dyslexia, thanks to new government funding for a team of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) researchers at the University of Southampton.
ECS Partnersâ STEMReader project is one of eight innovative schemes to share in £500,000 funding from the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) and the UKâs innovation agency â The Technology Strategy Board. The project is part of the âReady steady STEMâ competition managed by Jisc TechDis, a leading UK advisory service on technologies for inclusion.
The funding will be used to help develop a tool to assist with reading aloud and comprehending mathematical symbols and notations.
Project leader Dr Mike Wald said: âCurrently it is extremely difficult for a student with a print impairment, such as a visual impairment, dyslexia or dyscalculia, to read aloud a maths notation using a computer or mobile device.
âSTEMReader will enable students to open, reformat into large fonts, and hear aloud documents and materials containing maths content. It will make a significant step forward in reading aloud maths for learners at all levels from basics, to people in the workplace, to students at university.â?
Up to ten million individuals in the UK are estimated to be affected by print disabilities or dyscalculia, and people that face these barriers to reading and comprehending maths can struggle with STEM subjects. Having a tool to read aloud mathematical language and symbols become one of the most helpful coping strategies when manipulating mathematical concepts.
âBy developing the STEMReader tool we will enable for the first time a broader range of publishers and educators to easily share accessible STEM materials that can be read and understood by all types of users,â? added Dr Wald.
ECS Partners will be working with colleagues in other colleges and workplace learning providers to investigate how STEMReader can be used to help learners struggling to understand maths and help them to develop their functional numeracy skills.
The funding is part of the Small Business Research Initiative programme that encourages technology solutions to specific public sector needs. The £500,000 will support eight projects for six months that will open up access to STEM subjects for disabled learners. The projects may bid for further funding to develop their research.
For more information about the competition and the other successful companies, visit www.jisctechdis.ac.uk/sbri.