Soumac Award 2014 winner announced

Last month, we mentioned that Soumac has joined forces with the world-renowned Electronics and Computer Science department at the University of Southampton to launch the Soumac Award. The annual prize was open to all students and recognised an outstanding student project that displayed passion and enthusiasm for the industry, whilst delivering an innovative use of hardware/software technology that solves a problem and was commercially viable.

After a high calibre of entrants, the 2014 winner was a low cost atmospheric imaging and data collection device, designed and built by final year student Jonathan Griffiths. Jonathan’s project, the development and build of a device to take temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure and GPS readings, alongside images, all in the confines of a ping pong ball, stood out amongst the competition. The device had even been tested, going up into the earth’s atmosphere attached to a weather balloon, which ended up in the Nevada desert, USA.

Alongside a cash prize and trophy, Jonathan got to showcase his project on the Soumac stand at the Southern Manufacturing Show in Farnborough in February.

Jonathan said of winning the award “I feel privileged to have been awarded the 2014 Soumac Award. It was an honour to be given the opportunity to present my project at the 2014 Southern Manufacturing Show. It has given me an insight into the inner workings of the industry.”

Soumac Managing Director, Mike Souter, said: “After interviewing the candidates and getting them to demonstrate their projects it was quite a difficult decision to decide on the winner. However, Jonathan’s project won our award by showing great innovation, overcoming a lot of technical problems and demonstrating his project worked.”