Some Fantastic Projects Displayed at DCU's Faculty of Engineering and Computing Expo

This year saw the largest turnout ever of both final year students and employers  to  the Faculty of Engineering and Computing Expo. Over 175 projects were on display from the School of Computing, the School of Electronic Engineering and the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering.  Employers were impressed with the range of technology on show and spent much time talking to students in detail about their projects.   Many of the companies visiting hired students on the day.  SAP Ireland was the main sponsor again this year and sponsors of prizes included Fidelity Investments, FINEOS, OPENET, Ericsson and IBM.

The winner of the most innovative project was ‘Safe Return’ created by Computer Applications student Martin Jeffers, chosen by OPENET.  Joe Hogan, CTO said “our criteria focused on novel projects that had real potential to be developed with the help of OPENET.  We were impressed on how Martin delivered two very polished mobile applications, with excellent user interface design and well engineered back-end architecture".  Other impressive and most unusual projcets on the day including Biomedical Engineering student Jayme Rossiter and his project 'Design Aspects of the Hoka One One Running Shoe Concept'.  This project aimed to examine the new trend in maximalist running shoes that is popular among athletes for it's lightness and 'barefoot' feel. 

School of Computing student, Andrew O’ Hart for his ‘ WizardVR’ project utilises the new immersive virtual reality headset, the Oculus Rift, to create a responsive and immersive wizard fantasy game world. 

Global warming, climate change,  the unsuitability of fossil fuels and their massive pollutive impact on mother earth has increased our attention towards renewable energies such as solar energy.  Shaahad Shaamile from the School of Electronic Engineering developed an 'Ardino-based Solar Tracker'. She used the low cost Ardino board in combination with light dependent resistors to track the greatest possible incidence angel of sunlight onto an array of solar cells.

The Expo started at 8.00am but was still buzzing by lunchtime with employers studying projects and interviewing potential new employees! Each year the Expo highlights new talents and new upcoming ideas, this year was no exception.

Projects on display on the day: http://www.computing.dcu.ie/fyp/booklet.pdf

For more information contact:  Christine Stears@dcu.ie