IDE comes of age

FRIENDS and alumni of ICs Industrial Design Engineering (IDE) course celebrated its 21st birthday with a special forum and party. Established as a joint venture between the Royal College of Art and the faculty of engineering at Imperial, the course was the first of its kind, training graduate engineers to understand good design practice and creativity in manufacturing.

Last Wednesdays forum and party highlighted a week long calendar of events called ide21: outside the box which celebrated the anniversary of the postgraduate course, founded in 1980.

Professor John Perkins, principal of the faculty of engineering, said: The clear value of the course is illustrated by the fact that this partnership has lasted 21 years.

Course graduates are highly sought after by a wide range of industries. We can truly claim that the alumni are designing the world from bases all over Europe, the USA, the Far East and Australia..

The event, hosted by the Royal College of Art, offered past and present students the opportunity to exhibit their work. A debate on Monday about the role for design practice and research in the future, was chaired by a distinguished panel including inventor Greg Dyson.

Mike Cane, who graduated from the course in 1984, presented his final year honours project that entered product production last year. The SIAscope skin imaging system makes skin cancer much easier to spot by allowing doctors to see what is happening beneath the surface of the skin. he said. Clinical trials across Europe have shown that the SIAscope has halved the number of melanoma cases that are missed at first consultation.

Edward Goodwin, one of this years graduates, addressed safety issues relating to the current design for applying, removing and storing scalpel blades for his honours project. By integrating blade dispensing and storage into the handle, the user can locate and apply the blade quickly avoiding injury, he added.

www.ide.rca.ac.uk/21/

*** © Imperial College 2001. This article originally appeared in IC Reporter, the staff newspaper of Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine. Please contact the editor Tanya Reed (Email: icreporter@imperial.ac.uk, Telephone: +44 20 7594 6697) for permission to re-use any or all parts of this article.***