48
technology + innovation awards 2008
University Support of Business
Cambridge University
Royal College of Art
Inclusive Design
Longer life expectancies are resulting in an increased
proportion of older people within the adult population.
With increasing age comes a decline in capability, yet
often increased wealth and free time. The baby-boomer
generation now approaching retirement is less likely to
tolerate products they cannot use.
Inclusive Design places the responsibility with product
designers to ensure that the capability levels required to
use a product are as low as possible.
The concept of Inclusive Design has been developed by
Profs John Clarkson and Roger Coleman through a
long-term collaborative partnership between the
Engineering Design Centre at Cambridge University and
the Helen Hamlyn Centre at the Royal College of Art.
This has led not only to an academic reputation
described as ‘internationally leading’, but also a range of
practical tools for industry.
Since 2005 Clarkson and Coleman have been working
with Sagentia to develop training courses and
educational material for BT as part of a major initiative
to raise awareness of inclusive design across the UK.
As part of this, BT sponsored development of the
Inclusive Design toolkit, a web-based tutorial and
knowledge resource that is now being rolled out to all BT
product commissioners and design project managers to
encourage user-centric design. The toolkit attracted
more than 1.7 million hits in its first year and has been
adopted as the basis of about a dozen design courses
around the globe.
Loughborough University
Sports Technology Institute
Loughborough University sports technology research
group is one of the world’s leading research groups of its
kind, and the largest in the UK. It has established an
international reputation for its work with global brands on
the design, simulation, testing and manufacture of
sporting goods.
About 50 academics, research associates, technicians
and PhD students undertake wide-ranging research
relating to athletic footwear, technical sports apparel,
protective equipment, balls, clubs and rackets.
The group undertakes collaborative research with
global brands including adidas, Dunlop, Nike, Speedo and
Umbro. It has also attracted significant funding and
support from sports’ governing bodies and agencies such
as the International Tennis Federation, the British
Olympic Association and UK Sport.
In 2007 a £15m Sports Technology Institute was
created to house the group.
This houses state-of-the-art equipment and facilities,
with numerous bespoke pieces of equipment including a
customised golf robot, a ball-kicking robot, a cricket
bowling simulator and a garment durability test rig, all
designed and built by the research group itself.
Other equipment includes ergometers, physiological
testing facilities and performance measurement
facilities.
It also houses a number of high-precision metrology
instruments and a comprehensive machine tool
workshop.
Wolfson Unit MTIA
Southampton University
The America’s Cup
Southampton University has supported the yachting
industry for more than 40 years and has, in
particular, developed close associations with
America’s Cup teams. This is a specialised and
highly-competitive branch of the industry with each team
operating as a business on annual budgets of €20m
(£16m) or more.
The America’s Cup is by its nature a stop-start
event, and teams form and re-shape after each
event.
The university’s Wolfson Unit has been an island of
continuity through numerous cup cycles, and has been
able to develop and preserve best practice for teams
interested in their use.
Evidence of success from this support is demonstrated
by the university’s relationship with the two teams that
contested the final of the Louis Vuitton Cup in 2007,
Emirates Team New Zealand and Luna Rossa Challenge,
with the winner, Emirates Team New Zealand, going on
to challenge in the America’s Cup.
The engineering and technology provided by
Southampton University consisted of the Southampton
wind tunnels test facilities, specialised test equipment
used in other test facilities, testing services and training
in towing tanks and wind tunnels, software for
experimental data analysis and performance prediction of
the yachts and consultancy services to integrate the
R&D work into the design process.
the EnGIneeR 15–28 SEPTEMBER 2008
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