I have passion for coaching and mentoring students, I was the personal tutor for 90 graduates on their final major projects over 15 years, for 5 years in a row I was the most requested tutor in product design.
Many of the student projects that I tutored aligned with my own professional experience, combining Design and Engineering to create assistive devices, mobility aids, 3D printing, bicycle and bicycle accessory design. These projects won many prizes; including Institute of Engineering (IED) student prizes, Dyson Award prizes, RSA Student Design Awards winners, New Designers award winners and numerous prizes for the Top UWE design student projects of the year.
Below is a small sample of the outstanding graduating students that I tutored:
Walk to Beat – Neha’s Smart Walking Stick
If there’s one graduation project that I would have loved to see go into production it was Neha’s Smart walking stick to assist with Dementia. It was passionately driven from a real and personal human centred need. And brilliantly resolved by combining design and technology. Fantastically, Neha has gone on to develop it as the Walk to Beat – Smart Stick.
There are many news articles about Neha’s wonderful project, including: In Parkinson’s Life. Another article in Parkinson’s Life. This article in Tech Spark.
Matt’s Apple Peeling Tractor for Kids
Matt created this wonderful push-along apple peeler to encourage healthy eating by children. With both a fully working mechanical proof of concept and shiny presentation model. I honestly believe this would still make a brilliant Kickstarter project.
Willem’s Polar 3D printer
Willem took the seed of an idea that I gave him and and totally crushed the project to develop the Open Source Circa 3D Printer, and then went on to further develop the design after graduation and has gone on to have a very successful career working in Amazon Robotics.
Will’s Arthritis Hand Massager
Will’s air powered hand massager designed to relieve the symptoms of Arthritis was another prize winner, both for best in course, and or a Dyson award commendation. Will got commercial backing and continued to develop the design after graduation as the Hand Angel .
There are many more of my graduates that I would love to celebrate here, I will add more in the future, I don’t have images to hand of many of the best projects, if any of my graduates have any great pics to share please send them over.