Students rewarded for good communication

The ability to communicate ideas is key to being a successful engineer. This week our department and members of industry and the engineering community recognised the importance of communication skills in a prize ceremony

The four first-year prizewinners and judges (left to right): Dominic Nolan of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Salil Gokhale, Christopher Trem, Sunny Bains, Alexis Biller of IBM, Yuchen Wang and Yiding Lu.

Top prizes went to Salil Gokhale, Yiding Lu, Christopher Trem, and Yuchen Wang at the Royal Academy of Engineering Technical Communication Final and Prizegiving held on Thursday 3 May. Gokhale and Lu were among 10 students chosen to re-presented five-minute talks they had given as part of their Professional Engineering coursework for the chance of winning £100 - something good for their CVs.

Also winning prizes that day were the Aurora, SODIS and TSAVOS second-year project teams. The Aurora team, who are working to provide enhanced internet capabilities in Morocco, gave a talk about their work before being awarded £100 per team member by Rebecca Whatley-Stokes of prize sponsor Dialog Semiconductor.

Sunny Bains, Technical Communication Tutor, says that the event shows that engineers really can be good communicators. “Engineers have the advantage of starting with good analytical skills. When they take the time to learn the basics of communication and then practise, they can become very persuasive speakers and writers. This is exactly what industry says it’s looking for from our graduates.”

The three judges, Dominic Nolan from the Royal Academy of Engineering, Alexis Biller of IBM and Sunny Bains chose Salil Gokhale’s presentation on the MotionScan system for creating video game imagery as the most polished and inspiring. Bains said “I think everyone in the department would be happier if all students showed as much passion for their subject as Salil did. I’m the ultimate non-gamer, but even I wanted to play LA Noire after he finished explaining why the technology behind it made it so engaging.”