Dean's Prize
Alan Chappel Engineering Innovation Prize

Presentation, December 2004

CONGRATULATIONS to all our Prize Winners!

WINNER: Dean's Prize Sarah Vincent, Mechanical Engineering   CAPSTONE PROJECT: Design of a New Magnet Retention System for a Cochlear Implant to Allow MRI Compatibility   SUPERVISOR: Professor Hung Nguyen   Professor David Lowe, Associate Dean Teaching and Learning presents the Deans Prize to Sarah Vincent

Cochlear Implants (CI) restore hearing to individuals with severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss, when conventional amplification is ineffective. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) uses safe, yet high strength magnetic fields and radio frequency (RF) signals to create detailed images of soft tissues.   Today over 60,000 people have received CIs worldwide, and approximately 75 million MRI scans are preformed each year. With the rapid development of both technologies, an obvious need exists for CI and MR compatibility, which is not yet fully realised due to interference with the cochlear implants internal magnet and electronic parts.   Recipients of the current Cochlear Ltd implant (the Nucleus 24), are able to have low strength MRIs, however they are required to undergo minor surgery for scans at the most common 1.5T strength. Cochlear Ltd has identified the need for this MRI safety to be improved in future implant designs.

WINNER: Alan Chappel Engineering Innovation Prize Steven Wiederman, Computer Systems Engineering and Medical Science CAPSTONE PROJECT: Software Representations of Human Visual Perception SUPERVISOR: Associate Professor Chris Peterson   Steven Wiederman presents his project

This research investigated some fundamental mechanisms of human visual perception. It modelled, in software, what is known from neuroscientific studies about the early stages of the visual pathway. Studies of biological vision have revealed some of the details of how information about the world around us, contained in the stimuli of light falling falling on the retina, is dramatically changed as it passes through successive layers of neurons until it creates in our consciousness the three dimensional model of our surroundings. What is known, after decades of effort, are the principles by which this occurs and studies of individual neurons are unlikely ever to reveal this. A whole new approach may well provide guidance to understanding visual processes. It was the intention of this research to explore such an alternative approach.  

A software model was developed that simulates the neuronal processing of sensory data from the retina to the Lateral Geniculate Nucleus (LGN). By comparing the results of this simulation to what we perceive, particularly for illusions, we can evaluate whether the simulation properly represents the visual system. The value of the simulation is whether it can generate hypotheses about the visual pathways that can be tested by perceptual psychologists and neuroscientists. 

Congratulations to all students nominated for best Oral Capstone Project Presentation in their discipline:

Harold Burchey, Electrical Engineering

James Chia, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Stanley Kozak, Telecommunications Engineering

Hannah Price, Civil Engineering

Daniel Santamaria, Software Engineering

Sarah Vincent, Mechanical Engineering

Steven Wiederman, Computer Systems Engineering

 

View the abstracts from all student presentations.

Students presented their capstone projects to a audience that including members of the Faculty's Industry Advisory Network (IAN), Faculty staff, family and friends at an awards night on December 15 2004.

Each semester the best students in their engineering discipline are nominated to present their capstone projects at an awards night, vying for both the Dean?s Prize and the Alan Chappel Engineering Innovation Prize (formerly the IAN Prize).

The Dean?s Prize recognises the need for all engineers to be able to communicate their technical ideas, concepts and projects in a manner that can be easily understood by an audience that may not have their level of expertise.

The Alan Chappel Engineering Innovation Prize is awarded each semester to the student whose Capstone Project embodies an innovation deemed by the Industry Advisory Network (IAN) selection panel to have the greatest potential for commercial development.

Judging of the Dean?s Prize is done primarily by the Dean in consultation with other Faculty members. Judging of the Alan Chappel Engineering Innovation Prize is undertaken by a panel of industry representatives.
 

View Information on previous prize winners

December 2003

July 2004

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