Taster
Carbon Capture via Mineralisation
Contacts: Derek Fray, Materials Science, & Michael Priestnall, Cambridge Carbon Capture Mentor: Dr. Nicky Athanassopoulou Professor Derek Fray and his team in the Department of Materials Science, in partnership with Cambridge Carbon Capture, is investigating novel chemistry and electrochemistry to cost-effectively capture and sequester CO2 from fossil fuel power generation as a solid carbonate mineral. Compared to…
A low-cost computer for the developing world
Contact: Jack Lang, Lecturer, Computer Lab Mentor: Amy Weatherup A team from The Computer Lab here at Cambridge is currently developing a low-cost computing box initially designed to allow kids and other enthusiasts to learn how to write programs. Led by Jack Lang, who was one of the creators of the BBC Micro (recently featured in…
Non-labelled and selective detection of bacteria at the point-of-care
Contacts: Sourav Ghosh, Engineering & Dr Viktor Ostanin, Chemistry Mentor: Marc Bax Rapid detection of pathogenic micro-organisms is getting increasingly important in clinical, bio-defence, food processing and environmental applications. However, the conventional biochemical techniques, such as ELISA and PCR, are time-consuming and expensive, and are dependent on complex sample preparation which requires skilled personnel. The problems…
Investigating the citric acid marketplace
Contacts: Dr David Zou, Materials Science and GreenPB Mentor: Dr. Nicky Athanassopoulou GreenPB (who were originally an i-Team) are in the early stages of commercialising a new environmentally-friendly method of recycling car batteries, invented by Dr. Vasant Kumar of Materials Science. The company has secured an EEDA Proof of Concept grant, and also won the first…
Commercialising an automated rowing trainer
Contacts: Simon Fothergill, Computer Lab Mentor: Dr. John Hunter A team of researchers from the Computer Lab and Engineering department in Cambridge have worked for the past 2 years on a detailed sensing project for athletes. The SESAME project (SEnsing in Sport and Managed Exercise) has looked at a variety of methods for measuring and analysing…
A low-cost programmable computer for kids
Contact: Jack Lang, Lecturer, Computer Lab Mentor: Amy Weatherup Applications to study Computer Science at University have dropped sharply over the past 10 years, as computers have become tools to use rather than machines to program. It is very hard for school-age children to find appropriate environments to try programming computers, with PCs and Java being…
Passive RFID Tracking System for an Intelligent Airport
Contacts: Sithamparanathan Sabesan, CAPE Mentor: Amy Weatherup RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags are widely used as a passive means of identifying items, in particular being used by retailers to track high value goods. Their main limitation has been the short range over which the tags can be detected. The research team at CAPE has been working…
Photonic Bio-sensors Based on Novel Polymer Waveguides
Contacts: Nikos Bamiedakis & Joseph Beals, CAPE Mentor: John Loveluck, 42 Technology The research team at CAPE has been focusing on developing new light-based electronics using a novel polymer material from Dow Corning. They are now interested in finding other commercial applications for the material, in particular in the field of photonic (light-based) biosensors. The polymer materials have…
Combining mobile phones, medical devices and temperature
Contacts: Dr. Shamus Husheer, Cambridge Temperature Concepts Mentor: Caren Weinberg Cambridge Temperature Concepts Ltd (CTC) is a recent university spin-out, which started in the college rooms of graduate students, won multiple university business plan competitions, and raised funding from local Angel investors. CTC has developed a highly precise body-worn wireless temperature logger, initially aimed at the…