Young Software Engineer of the Year Award

A talented student from the University of Edinburgh has been named Young Software Engineer of the Year by Scotland IS; the trade body for Scotland's ICT industry.

Peter Sandilands won first prize for his exceptional project which improves the hearing and visual responses in the AIBO Robot.

The MIND 2 system currently used in the AIBO Robots had trouble recognising faces and did not prioritise them, nor did it react realistically to loud noises.

A specialist system (using a Haar-like feature detection system, motion detection system and auditory system based on Interaural Time Differences) was implemented and showed a statistically significant improvement in response time compared to the MIND 2 system.

We are proud to announce that Peter becomes the 8th student at the School of Informatics in the last 12 years to have received the Young Software Engineer Award.

Peter collected a unique contemporary trophy, donated by ScotlandIS, and the first prize, a cheque for £1500 from Sopra Group UK.

Previous Informatics Winners

• 2010- First prize, Peter Sandilands
• 2009- First prize, Michal Bartosik
• 2007- First prize, Hui Sun
• 2006- First prize, Nicholas O’Shea
• 2003- First prize, Tim Angus
• 2000- First prize, Will Bryson
• 1999- First prize, Edward Knowelden
• 1998- Second prize, Hugh Leather