Congratulations to all the students that took part in our first Aegis Professor UG competition, you were all winners.
Lots of demanding work went into the event. Thanks to everyone who helped the Science Partnership Office to make the day a success, starting with the Aegis Professors of course, who brought interesting scientific challenges to the event and also provided inspiring “experience” prizes for all the winning teams – we’re looking forward to hearing about those when the students return.
We could not have pulled this off without our amazing students. Thanks to all of those who took part and a special thanks to the students and society reps who joined our student reference team and helped to shape the competition and spread the word to fellow students. The £5K prize was provided by the Faculty of Science – a big thank you to the Dean and the Faculty Manager for believing in our vision and providing the funding.
Six teams presented to a panel consisting of five Aegis Professors and an audience including fellow students, the Dean, Faculty Research Director and Faculty Business Fellow. A display of the teams’ posters, summarising their challenge and solutions, was available to view throughout the event, inspiring a lot of comment and discussion.
After some tough decision making, the panel were delighted to declare that the overall winners were Team 1 – Dana Alismail (Earth Sciences), Lumi Long (Maths), Ruby Page, Weronika Stelmach and William Terry-Wright (all Chemistry). Their excellent teamwork, lively presentation and eye-catching poster all combined to win them the top prize of £5000, as well as a tour of the haptic and hand tracking tech company Ultraleap.
As you can see from the picture, team members Lumi, William and Weronika were incredibly happy with their win!
Weronika described the competition as ‘a great opportunity to apply my scientific skill set in a new creative environment, to a task which was associated with a real-world problem. Developing our ideas alongside the Aegis professors provided insight into the feasibility of our app and our approach. The coaching sessions with the Aegis Professors gave perspective, and personal stories on how science meets industry.’
The panel were hugely impressed with all the teams as research, presentations and posters were of a remarkably high quality. There was a great positive vibe to the event, and it was wonderful to see how students from all our Schools (Physics, Chemistry, Maths, Geographical Sciences and Earth Sciences) worked together so well. We had a lot of great feedback on the day from all participants, and we’ll certainly be planning another event in the near future – watch out for news.
Click here for a summary of all the teams and their projects.
