VICON SPONSOR MAJOR ENGINEERING AWARD

Motion capture specialist sign up to support fresh talent

21 July 2008, Oxford, UK: Vicon, the academy award winning motion capture specialist, and part of the Oxford Metrics Group, today announced its support for the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) annual Medical Engineering Student Project competition. As part of a five year sponsorship agreement, Vicon has supported the ‘Best Project involving the Design or Development of a Medical Device’ with a prize value of £500.

The award was open to recent graduates (2007), third/fourth year undergraduates and taught Masters Degree students, who completed or were working on a project involving the design or development of a medical device. Robin Read, a student from Middlesex University, scooped the top prize for his project - 'The Design and Development of an End-Effector for a Wheelchair-Mounted Robotic Arm'.

Iain Charlton, biomechanical engineer and developer at Vicon, has been a board member of the IMechE Medical Engineering Division (MED), independently of Vicon, for five years. This year he was in charge of organizing the student competition.

Charlton said: “I approached Vicon for sponsorship this year, and one of the benefits of being the sponsor is to judge. Although Robin wowed us with his presentation, all of the finalists were very impressive and came across exceptionally well. It’s been exciting to see such a high quality of entries this year.”

“The day was a great success, thanks in part to the extra sponsorship from Vicon, helping to attract more entries. This is definitely an event that's growing and something we can be proud of being involved with. The supervisors I spoke to now make it a regular event to encourage their students to apply to and we reach more Universities every year.”

Winner, Robin Read said: "I am honoured to have won the Vicon sponsored category in the 2008 IMechE MED Student Project Competition. Receiving such recognition from such a prestigious Institution has very much validated what I have been doing for the past year.”

“I would like to thank Dr. Iain Charlton of Vicon and Professor Peter Brett of the IMechE for taking the time to judge my category, it must have been a very difficult job to do given the variety of the submissions."

Next year, Vicon hopes to be even more involved and take an active part in the Industry and Academic Exhibition in the morning, which is aimed at schools and colleges.

Nick Bolton, chief executive at OMG said: “We are pleased to sponsor this prize because Vicon is a technology company that knows the value of innovation, research and bright people. As an industry we have a responsibility to attract young people to engineering and to support education.”

Amy Hurlstone, events executive at IMechE said: “On behalf of the Medical Engineering Division of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, I would like to extend my thanks to you for playing a huge part in organising the day. Thanks to your generous assistance, giving both your time and resources, the Institution is able to support and encourage students in Medical Engineering and promote the importance of this profession to the wider community.”

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About Oxford Metrics Group
Oxford Metrics (LSE: OMG) is a group of technology companies producing image understanding solutions for the entertainment, defence, life science and engineering industries. Be it for capturing the movements of actors (for the movie industry), sportsmen (for video games or improving team performance), children with Cerebral Palsy, rehab patients and animals (for medical, life science and research industries) or virtual reality displays (for engineering and development), the Group has the world leading market position and a strong international reputation for precision instruments.

Founded in 1984, the Group’s headquarters are in Oxford, UK, and has offices in California and Colorado, USA. It has customers in over 50 countries and is a quoted company listed on AIM, a market operated by the London Stock Exchange. The Group trades through three operating subsidiaries – Vicon, the world’s biggest motion capture and movement analysis company, 2d3, a manufacturer of specialised image understanding software for entertainment and defence applications and Yotta, our 3D mapping business.

Oxford Metrics’ global clients in science, medicine, sport, engineering, gaming, film and broadcast include major hospitals and research facilities such as Guy's Hospital, Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre and Loughborough University, engineering industry leaders including Ford Motor Company, BMW, Airbus, Caterpillar, and Toyota, and in the entertainment sector, Sony, Industrial Light and Magic, The Moving Picture Company (MPC), Sega, Nintendo, UbiSoft, EA, Square Enix and many others.

For more information about OMG and its subsidiaries, visit www.omg3d.com, www.vicon.com, www.2d3.com or www.yotta.tv.

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