Trinity students participate in Stanford Design EXPErience 2013

Posted on: 19 August 2013

Four Trinity students from the Schools of Engineering and Computer Science recently completed an intensive 30 week industry sponsored design project in collaboration with Stanford graduate students at Stanford’s Design EXPErience 2013.

The event attracts industry leaders of Silicon Valley scouting for the next big design innovation with this year’s sponsoring companies including Audi, Microsoft, Unicef, Volvo, FIFA and Rovio (makers of Angry Birds app).

Trinity College Dublin’s participation in this year’s session of Stanford’s prestigious ME310 Design Innovation course was sponsored by SAP, the world leader in enterprise software. The ME310 course places students in a ‘real world’ design dialogue with a corporate partner and, by the end of the course they deliver a bespoke innovative solution or process for that company. The focus of the collaborative project was on SAP’s AppHaus innovation space and how remote collaboration between teams can be achieved using the latest in technology and design thinking.

TCD project team members communicate using image recognition software to analyse their movements.

Assistant Professor Gareth Bennett, of the School of Engineering and coordinator of the TCD ME310 team praised Trinity students Eimear Connolly, Peter Weldon, Mark Culleton and Ray Barrett (CS). “These exceptional students delivered a world class presentation to a packed lecture theatre in the Packard Centre in Stanford and showcased their Design Innovation Solution to enthusiastic participants of the Showcase in the D-School. Their dedication and commitment to the project throughout the 30 weeks was exemplary and the solution they developed has already attracted interest from companies looking to commercialise it.”

Professor Margaret O’Mahony, School of Engineering and instigator of the link between TCD and Stanford said, “This collaboration has been a huge success and Trinity is now considered by Stanford and this elite University network as a peer in Design Innovation. Fostering the relationship required careful planning and necessitated strategic staff placements in Stanford but the result has been beneficial to the School of Engineering and has allowed the ability of our students and our high academic standards to attain international visibility.”

“Trinity’s Engineers and Computer Scientists are as good as the best in the world. An invitation to collaborate directly with Stanford’s School of Engineering and to be part of its Global Network of Elite Universities is testament to this fact. Trinity’s leading reputation in design excellence delivers graduates who can both pioneer new companies to create indigenous employment and help reinvent existing companies to make them more competitive,” said Assistant Professor Bennett who headed up the ME310 teaching team for Trinity with Professors Margaret O’Mahony, Kevin Kelly and Mike Brady and teaching assistant Dónal Holland.

Watch a video about SAP’s AppHaus innovation space.