Irish Student wins EU Young Scientists Contest 

Today in Finland Alexander Amini from Dublin was awarded the highest accolade at the 23rd European Union Contest for Young Scientists. The 15 year old Castlenock College student won the prize in computing with his Tennis Sensor Data Analysis project. 

The prize winning science project was in the top three selected by an international jury from among the 87 projects from 37 countries. The other two projects are from Switzerland and Lithuania. The prize winners - all under the age of 21 years - will share prize money totalling € 51 500.

Teams from Germany, United Kingdom and Bulgaria were awarded second prizes. Third prizes went to teams from Norway, Poland and the United Kingdom. 

Background

Alexander Amini's prize winning project called "Tennis Sensor Data Analysis". It is an Automated System for Macro Motion Refinement.

Sensors capable of capturing audio, video, and inertial data (such as accelerometers, gyroscopes, and magnetometers) have become so inexpensive, they are often found in smart phones and even remote control toys. However, it is not easy to correlate the performance of an athlete to the huge volumes of raw data captured by such sensors.

In this study, Alexander Amini collected and analyzed gigabytes of tennis sensor data. He discovered a technique for automatically distinguishing between 13 different tennis stroke types (e.g., distinguishing a forehand flat versus forehand topspin) using only inertial data with accuracy averaging over 96%, and implemented his technique as computer software. Previously published research was limited to classes of motion (such as forehand, backhand, serve).

His findings are relevant to a wide variety of motion assessment scenarios in sports, physical therapy, and emergency responses. 

More information on the winners and on all of the projects are available at: http://ec.europa.eu/research/youngscientists/index_en.cfm