Imagine Cup success

Matt Sharpe (left) and Simon Stringer who took the second prize in this year's UK final

Wednesday 2 May 2007
Imagine Cup success
A software programme developed by two computer science students at Aber, that enables school pupils from countries around the world to attend a virtual classroom, took second prize in the UK final of this year's Imagine Cup.

The challenge, set by the event's organiser Microsoft, was to develop software for use in education. From a field of 11 teams representing 6 universities, ‘World Class’, the work of Matt Sharpe and Simon Stringer which uses webcams, voice clips and instant messaging to give an international flavour to lessons, made it through to the final three and then awarded second prize by a distinguished panel of judges.

Working under the name Team Comp-u-Teach, Matt and Simon developed the concept with a view to making it easier and more fun for pupils to learn languages and exchange information about history and geography by making it possible for them to meet face to face on-line.   

With three teams out of the 11 finalists coming from UWA, Aberystwyth was one of the best represented universities.

Matt said:
“This has been an excellent experience. After giving our poster presentation in the morning we had time to mill around and meet potential employers from Microsoft, BT and a number of other important companies.”

“As soon as the final three teams were announced we were whisked away and given an hour to prepare for the final presentation which we did in front of an audience of nearly 200 business people, students and academics. I was very nervous and had never dreamt that I would be giving a presentation in front of such a large crowd.”

“The final announcement was something of a disappointment but looking back it was great to come second. Simon and I received an XBOX360 each and some books and software for our efforts,” he added.

Team mate Simon Stringer, who is currently on a Year in Employment work placements with the Department of Computer Science said:
“I am going to be taking part in next years competition, and hope to improve on my result this year. I would encourage any computer science students to get involved in the imagine cup.”

Aberystwyth’s Imagine Cup entries are co-ordinated by the University’s Microsoft representative Sandy Spence. Sandy is a member of the Microsoft Software Development Academic Alliance which enables UWA Computer Science staff and students to download the company’s software for free.

The other Aberystwyth entries were ‘Codename:Meety’, which offers timetabling software for school pupils and students and developed by James Parker and Danny Allen, and ‘Aperio’, which enables students to add comments and questions to material provided by teachers, the work of Robin Blackwell, Michalis Perrott and Steven Bourke.

As part of the preparations pupils from Penweddig an Penglais schools were invited to see the presentations and comment on the work of the teams before they travelled to the final round. Team members also discussed their ideas with pupils and teachers at other schools.

Now in its fifth year, Aberystwyth has had representatives in the final round for the last three years.  In 2005 Computer Science student Joseph Wardell was a member of the team that represented the UK in the world final in Japan. In 2006 Aberystwyth was represented by two teams in the UK final. Following his involvement final year student Nathan Fisher was offered a job with BT.

The final round of the UK competition was held at Microsoft’s head quarters in Reading. The winners go on to compete in the world final, which this year is being held in Korea. In the mean time Matt and Simon have been invited to present their work at the University of Plymouth.

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