A Rising Star

14 September 2009

Ross Burling (centre) proudly displays his Silicon Southwest Rising Star award for best undergraduate project, with supervisor Dr Jon Cobb.

BU student wins prestigious award.

Ross Burling, a final year BSc Electronic Engineering student was one of six winners of the prestigious Silicon Southwest Rising Stars awards. The award, funded by leading companies in wireless communications, including Vodaphone and Toshiba, recognises outstanding new talent in the electronics industry.

Ross developed a low-cost tripod drive mount for a digital SLR camera to enable very high resolution panoramic photography. The system comprises a novel mechanical chassis that allows the camera to be rotated and elevated using a microprocessor-based stepper motor control system. This enables automatic capture of images with very high resolution to 3000 mega pixels. Software was also designed to configure the system and pre-process the image data for subsequent post-processing into a single composite image. The outcome of this project was a fully functioning and calibrated product that was realised at a fraction of the cost of existing commercial setups.

Dr Jon Cobb was Ross's project supervisor and attended the ceremony with Ross:

“This superb result underscores the continuing quality of provision of our undergraduate courses in engineering. Ross has matured into an exceptional student who I am sure will secure employment with a top flight electronics company,” he said.