The Ad-Opt team of PhD students in the School of Engineering and Materials Science, Queen Mary, University of London have won second place and a cash prize of £2000.

The ‘Dragon’s Den’ style competition encourages entrepreneurship to find new start-up companies in the technology sector.

The Ad-Opt team impressed the judges by combining their individual research on various aspects of improving engine design for planes and automobiles and translating them into business ideas.

The projects focus on software to improve the physical design of the engine and examine how to enhance energy transfer and increase the performance of the engine, and build on the Schools industrial links with Volkswagen, Renault and Rolls Royce Jet Engine. The team hope that the competition experience will act as a launch pad to forming a limited company to optimise the aerodynamic shape and design better engines for the future.

The Ad-Opt team members are Shenren Xu, Xin Bai, Dandan Ren, Hassan Ali, and Faidon Christakopoulos.

More details available via the QMUL Media Centre: http://www.qmul.ac.uk/media/news/items/se/87632.html