The annual award is given to iED student members on HNC/HND courses who produce exceptional final year projects. Each year Colleges whose Engineering courses are accredited by the iED choose a student project to submit to be considered by the panel of iED judges.
Newbury College Engineering Lecturer, Richard Willis is delighted that Matt has been recognised as an outstanding engineering professional and said, "As in the past, due to the very high standard of projects produced by HNC/HND learners at the College, it was very difficult to select a single project to be submitted for this award. Throughout the year Matt attainted a very high standard in all units studied and his project displayed the excellent working relationship between the College and his employer".
The iED Education and Training Committee judging panel choose a limited number of projects each year to receive the accolade, which are chosen after stringent assessment of the project reports. Matt was one of 18 students to have their work submitted to the iED of which only 8 projects received the prestigious awards.
Matt's studies are supported by his employer Xtrac Ltd who are pleased with the results of the project and the benefits it brings to their business. Talking of his project Matt said, "Working as a Production Engineer for Xtrac Ltd, I wanted to be involved with a relevant project which reflected some of the responsibilities within my job role. The design brief for the project was: 'To carry out a design review of work-holding fixtures for the miling of Mainshaft (M/S) Gears in Xtrac's Gear Ratio Cell'. In order to meet the design brief a full design review was carried out beginning by re-defining the specification of the solution."
The project involved research including market analysis and from there Matt designed and created protocols for his solution. Matt's solution is now in use with his employer and provides a fully verified and proven design, which can be adopted for manufacture of similar products in the future.
To be eligible to receive an award iED student members have to attain two distinctions for their HNC/HND programme. One of the distinctions must be in a project at Level H related to Engineering Design. The other distinction is to be in either Engineering Design or Computer Aided Design at Level H.