ITI helps celebrate inspirational young engineers

Tim and Ashleigh standing next to a School of Computer Prize Winners sign.
Posted in Latest News on July 15th, 2022

Inspiring the next generation of engineers is key in our aim to use technology to advance the future, and this is why every year, ITI sponsors the Best Honours Project in Software Engineering at Robert Gordon University’s School of Computing Science and Digital Media Awards.

The award recognises students’ achievements in creating high-quality software applications that are not only well-engineered, but relevant and applicable in real-life scenarios, and this year’s winner fit that bill in a highly ambitious way.

The 2022 winner of the ITI sponsored award, Ashleigh Sinclair, created an asteroid lander simulation that was capable of autonomous navigation and able to detect and experiment with environmental variables to gauge the performance of flight characteristics.
Dr David Corsar, Lecturer, at the RGU School of Computing said “Unfortunately we didn’t have an asteroid lander available for the project, so a simulation had to be used, but the results were nonetheless excellent! The markers, and all those that saw the demo during our Honours Project Showcase event were very impressed. Ashleigh has excelled at both the theoretical and practical aspects of the course, with topics covering multi-platform software development, web development, cyber security, artificial intelligence, and data science.”

This year, the award ceremony was once again held in person, a welcome chance to interact with the students after the pandemic forced the celebrations online last year and cancelled the 2020 event. Ashleigh’s award was presented by ITI Real-time Information Systems Engineer Owen Jenkins, and Tim MacLaren who heads up the company’s Digital Operations and Support Hub in Aberdeen. Tim said: “We’ve been presenting this award for over ten years now and every year the ingenuity and innovation shown by the students is fantastic. Ashleigh’s simulation of the asteroid lander uses some complex problem solving and development to establish how that lander can operate effectively.  I’m really proud that we are able to support the amazing talent coming out of the University and look forward to seeing where Ashleigh and the other students’ careers develop.”

Ashleigh will be graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science with First Class Honours, having consistently demonstrated excellent academic capabilities throughout their studies.  Find out more about Ashleigh’s winning project here.

ITI recognises the benefits, innovation and progress that comes from nurturing young talent, and endeavours to develop the next generation of engineers through the regular intake of student placements and graduates. Contact our People team to find out more about our student and graduate programmes, or view our current vacancies here.