Third year students from the Computer Science/Information Systems programmes have completed a project involving a double link with industry.
The project was sponsored by software development company Scott Logic, and proposed by Jack Talbot, founder of Epistemy and a Heriot-Watt graduate. Epistemy is a company specialising in oil and gas history matching and uncertainty quantification which spun out from Heriot Watt in 2009.
We are delighted that our students have had the valuable experiences of working on a complex and challenging real-life problem and presenting their work to an industrial panel
The project
Groups of students have been working on the project for a year as a significant component of their third year studies. The students had to design a software system to enable oil engineers to view visualisations of data which had been produced from repeated simulations of a model of a reservoir.
The students had to undertake their own research into appropriate tools and techniques for the task. At the end of the second semester, Jack Talbot said to students: "What you have managed to produce over the course of the year is genuinely awesome, every team has something to be hugely proud of in their final product. I'd like to thank you for the enthusiasm and perseverance with which you attacked the problem."
Best Group Project Prize
On 14 May, representatives from Scott Logic visited the Computer Science department to judge presentations of the projects from the three top groups. One of the judges, Steven Shiells, is a Heriot-Watt graduate.
The Best Group Project prize was awarded to "Group 3" comprising Mindaugas Kadzys, Pierre LeBras, Calum Lennon, Angus Todd, George Vaughan and Aaron Williams. The students will be awarded a cash prize donated by Scott Logic.
Murray Crease, Head of Development at Scott Logic, presented the prizes. He said: "We were really impressed with the quality of work that the students have produced this year. All the groups demonstrated a flair for good design and what particularly impressed us was the thought and consideration that had gone into the interactivity and user experience of the solutions.
"Group 3 in particular demonstrated a good grasp of the different technologies employed. They developed a pragmatic clustering algorithm that balanced the needs of performance and accuracy and were able to give a good description of the development methodologies they employed. What was especially impressive was the way they adapted these methodologies to suit their requirements rather than blindly following the standard.
"Scott Logic has had a long association with the Computer Science department at Heriot-Watt and we are delighted to continue this support. We believe that supporting local universities in this way is beneficial to both parties. We are able to support the students and hopefully give them some insight into what life is like in the IT sector. Conversely we can continue to tap into the rich vein of talent that Heriot-Watt produces. We have a long history of hiring Heriot Watt students at both the intern and graduate level and hope this will continue."
Monica Farrow, Third year Supervisor for the Computer Science programme at Heriot-Watt said: "We very much appreciate the support that the students have received from both Epistemy and Scott Logic during this academic year. We are delighted that our students have had the valuable experiences of working on a complex and challenging real-life problem and presenting their work to an industrial panel".