Summer Gold Competition winners for 2018

Artificially created solid materials that act like fluids may sound like the stuff of science fiction, but this is the topic explored in the winning video entry for Victoria University’s annual Summer Gold Competition.

School of Design student, Monique Bateman’s research project (supervised by Tim Miller from Victoria University’s School of Design) focused on pentamode structures and the applications for these metamaterials, which won her Best Overall Video and $1,000 in prize money.

Chosen unanimously by the judges—despite several other highly-engaging entries—the narrative and imagery complemented each other seamlessly, gave a powerful explanation of an issue of genuine interest and clearly outlined the real world applications of this research.

From pentamode structures to portraits in the novels of Jane Austen, English Literature student Lydia Verschaffelt’s winning entry in the Best Overall Poster category presented her analysis of Austenʼs six major novels through the lens of portraits.

Judges rewarded Lydia’s visually strong portrayal of a difficult topic to non-specialists, commenting on the well thought-out research, which was supervised by Professor Heidi Thomson from the School of English, Film, Theatre and Media Studies.

The Summer Gold Competition aims to acknowledge the research achievements of the students who participated in the recent Summer Research scholarship programme by inviting them to design a poster or create a video about their research, in collaboration with their supervisor.

This year there were 10 categories, and 12 students awarded from across the University. A full list of the winners can be found below.

For more information about the scheme, see Summer Research scholarships.

Best Overall Poster

English Literature student Lydia Verschaffelt ($1,000) with her poster Portraits in the Novels of Jane Austen.

Best Overall Video

Design student Monique Bateman ($1,000) with her video Pentamode Structures – 4D Materiality.

Video highly commended

Engineering Student Benjamin Evans ($50) with his video What is image classification?

Most engaging demonstration of research

Engineering student Luke Johnson ($250) with his poster Shrinking Big Data with Swarm Intelligence.

Accounting and Commercial Law student Robbie Speakman ($250) with his poster Disruptive Technology as a Public Sector Driver of Change.

Best Visual Presentation

Humanities student Jeremy Young ($500) with his poster Creative Legacy Project.

Architecture and Design winner

Architecture students Susana Ou and Zarah Sahib ($250 each) with their poster Inclusion of Rongoā Māori in Zealandia and Birdwood Research.

Science and Engineering winner

Science student from the Ferrier Institute, Aanchal Singh ($500), with his poster The Extraction of Collagen from Ovine Skins using Chemical and Biochemical Processes.

Humanities, Health and Psychology winner

English Literature student Samantha Murphy ($500) with her poster Walking Radical Wellington.

Biological Sciences winner

Biological Science student Daniel Davis ($500) with his poster From Forest Grasslands.

Biological Sciences highly commended

Biological Science student Liam Daly ($50) with his poster Monitoring Lizard Fauna in the Aorangi Ranges.

Science and Humanities winner

Geology student Klayton Amai ($500) with his poster Geotrips.

Science and Humanities highly commended

Geography student Ted Taylor ($50) with his poster Where are our students coming from?

Victoria Business School winner

Information Management student Siddharth Patel ($500) with his poster Refining and Validating a Process Model for Globally Distributed Software Development (GDSD).