[03/04/2025] On Wednesday, 2nd April 2025, the School of Informatics hosted its annual Student Design Project (SDP) Trade Fair, exhibiting work of third-year students. Held in the Informatics Forum, the event showcased creativity and technological innovation, drawing a crowd of fellow students, supervisors, industry partners and the School of Informatics staff. Real-life teamwork challenge The SDP course challenges students to construct complex systems under conditions that simulate real-world teamwork. The course-ending Trade Fair provides an opportunity for the student teams to present the systems they have built. The attendees vote for their favourite projects, that are subsequently awarded prizes at the ceremony later that day. From interactive darts to solving the Rubic cube – the winners 1st Place: Flightless – An interactive dart game using wristbands, eliminating the risk of dart holes in walls and doors. 2nd Place & Technicians Award: PoolPal – A pool-playing robot designed for a reduced-size pool table. Public Vote: CleanCaps – A keyboard cleaning robot for offices and labs. Peer Vote & Best Pitch: Piggybank – An educational piggybank with interactive games and math puzzles to teach children the value of money. Best Live Demo: RubiksCuber – A robot that solves Rubik's Cubes and teaches users, with multiple difficulty levels. The history of SDP SDP’s history predates the establishment of the School of Informatics. It’s more than a taught course; it’s an institution within Informatics. The system to be designed in the project has varied over the years from robot shopping through Mars lander, robot mine clearance, and robot football to assistive robotics. This year's theme, "assistive robotics", inspired a variety of projects, from robots playing pool and solving Rubik's cubes to cleaning stairs and keyboards. Related links Undergraduate Course: System Design Project Tags 2025 Event Student Publication date 07 Apr, 2025
