Student impact

cybathlon

Cybathlon

The Cybathlon will give people living with severe disabilities, who have previously been unable to participate in any sports, the ability compete in a range of challenges with the help of the latest assistive technologies.

A team of students and staff from Imperial College London are developing a number of projects from novel prosthetic arms to a powered wheelchair capable of tackling stairs. The competition is set to further develop the field of assistive technology, enabling people with disabilities to perform tasks that currently seem beyond their reach.
Aqualose

iGEM

A team of undergraduates from Imperial College London compete against hundreds of teams from universities around the world at the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition, which is held in Boston, USA.

In 2014 the Imperial team undertook a project and used the parts to design and build a new type of membrane. Following the competition some members of the team continued to work on the project and are now running start-up CustoMem.
Sports innovation

Sports innovation

The Sports Innovation Challenge is a flagship programme of curriculum based projects which challenge second year bioengineering students to design, build and implement solutions to real world engineering problems around a Disability Sports and Paralympic theme.

Our students have worked with Paralympic athletes to develop a number of innovations, including new handlebar mechanism for 3-time silver medallist Jon-Allan Butterworth to enable him to transition from a standing start to aerodynamic position.

iGEM success

Congratulations to our iGEM team Undergraduate Grand Winner for iGEM 2016 in addition to winning a Gold Medal and awards for:

  • best education & public engagement 
  • best new basic part
  • best wiki 
  • best poster 
  • best foundational advance project

You can find out more about their project on their wiki.