Engineering Startup Projects &
Experiential Learning Projects

Appear in the 1st Engineering InnoShow (30 April 2019)

Chair: Dr. Henry Y.K. Lau (Associate Dean of Innovation, Faculty of Engineering) 

List of projects

Mechanical Engineering

A robotic catheter system for MRI-guided cardiac electrophysiological intervention

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques allow intra-operative monitoring of the ablation procedure during cardiovascular electrophysiology (EP). However, currently it is still challenging to carry out effective catheterization under MRI environment. We present an MR-safe robot for intra-cardiac EP intervention. The robot actuation features small hysteresis, effective force transmission and quick response. Experimental evaluation has verified its capability to precisely tele-manipulate a standard clinically used EP catheter. The slave part of the robot is made of non-metallic MR-safe materials, therefore can operate close to or inside the MRI scanner without adversely affecting the MR image quality.

Read More »
Engineering startup

Datax

We are a research data crowdsourcing platform for researchers & AI companies to collect & enrich data with the help from public contributors. We are founded by a group of HKU BBA(IS)/CS graduates and MSc(CS) students, supported by HKU, Cyberport and HKSTP.

If you need labels & annotations for your AI/ML projects, or look for manpower for collecting & preprocessing data, we can help save time & resource required to manage the data contributors and collect more quality & diverse data efficiently. Our platform currently specializes in offering:
1. Image/Video/Audio/Doc tagging & annotation
2. Survey
3. Sentiment analysis

Read More »
Computer Science

Duckietown AI-Driving

HKU Duckietown Project is an interdisciplinary project that aims to democratise A.I. and robotics research. Through this project, students will gain tangible experience in a fun and playful way in prototyping self-driving robots and applying A.I. to the physical education platform developed by MIT for experiential learning.
A project highlight is the students’ participation in the A.I. Driving Olympics (AI-DO) international contests, with the live final events co-locate with NIPS and ICRA, the prestigious conferences in A.I. and robotics. Through the preparation of the competitions for over half a year, students will undergo intensive trainings, foster peer collaborations, solidify their knowledge and demonstrate a sustainable learning outcome.

Read More »
Engineering startup

eCup

eCup promotes coffee culture and grows whole supply chain market via digital. Our service is unique in HK and ASEANs among any other F&B solutions as we cover vertically entire user journey on coffee from knowledge, searching, ordering, e-payment, e-stamps, rewards and after purchase engagement, which gives a pioneer digital & fully automated UX. We have UI tailor made based on user’s coffee habit, innovative friends treat feature via WhatsApp (i.e. Treat friends coffee remotely), big data campaign analysis, and user behavior driven CRM. Our mission is, when you need coffee, use eCup.

Read More »
Computer Science

Mixed Reality (MR) ready aircraft

Airlines have started removing IFE monitors to promote fuel economy and give way to handheld devices while losing traction and loyalty from passengers. Meanwhile, a US$300-million market of MR technology has just propelled recently and will soon become a new standard of entertainment. Under this narrative, MR ready aircraft opens up a huge variety of entertainment options to passengers and convincing business opportunities to airlines. Yet, without a standardized platform, MR developers are less interested in projects around aircraft, a subject with tedious regulations and tremendous know-how of engineering.

SKYLINER is a middleware designed for MR developers to create and publish their work on board, where passengers and crews can benefit from limitless creations. The platform includes components that are crucial to developers, like spatial understanding of the cabin environment, and compliance to regulations. SKYLINER would soften the grind during the development stage and take care of the needs of partners in MR industry.

MR ready aircraft and SKYLINER mean an opportunity of partnership with IT giants, reinforce the pledge of offering premium service and keep AIRBUS at the helm in the market.

Read More »
Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Open ocean robot platform

It is estimated that 1.15 to 2.41 million tonnes of plastic are entering the ocean each year from rivers. More than half of this plastic is less dense than the water, meaning that it will not sink once it encounters the sea. The stronger, more buoyant plastics show resiliency in the marine environment, allowing them to be transported over extended distances.

However, we believe that we can help reduce the amount of plastic that reaches the open ocean.

We started Clearbots to make it affordable and viable for local communities to clear their water of dumped plastic waste.

Read More »
Engineering startup

Planto – Digital data driven financial advisor

Planto is a data driven digital finance advisor that helps millennials achieve financial greatness allowing users to plan, track and stay on top
of their progress. By automatically aggregating user’s
savings, credit cards, investments, loans, mortgages and retirement
accounts – Planto can leverage AI and big data to proactively give
predictive financial advice that is always in users’ interest.

Read More »
Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Toggle

Toggle is an adhesive wall switch robot that turns normal wall switch smart. It aims to solve low adoption of smart home upgrade led by cumbersome installation. Connected by Wi-Fi and runs on MQTT Pub/Sub Protocol, Toggle can Push/Pull and monitor the wall switch mechanically with Wi-Fi connected sensor or even outdoor using the mobile app. Its cost and size is minimised for commercialisation.

Read More »