A group of computer games students from Sheffield Hallam University have won £25,000 in a prestigious competition to develop innovative concepts for the nation's elite athletes.

UK Sport believe the students' project has so much potential to give Britain's Olympic athletes an edge that they have classified it 'top secret'.

Varun Kadle (MA in Animation for Computer Games), SM Imran HZ (MA in Animation for Computer Games), Shanaka Senevirathne (MSc in Games Development Software) and Mangala Kodagoda (MSc in Games Development Software) won the top prize to continue their research project for UK Sport’s 2009 Ideas4innovation: New Researchers Award.

The New Researchers Award is aimed at final year and first year postgraduate students with creative ideas that may have the potential to enhance the performance of British Olympic or Paralympic athletes.

Professor Steve Haake, head of sports engineering at Sheffield Hallam, said: "The students were very quick to pick up on the needs of the sport. They worked fantastically as a team, with two programmers and two animators producing a really polished piece of software. It obviously worked because not only did they get to the final but they won!"

New Researchers Award winner Varun Kadle said: 'It is truly an honour to be recognised by Britain's elite sports governing organisation. This is the perfect reward for the team's hard work. I am very glad that the work and dedication of each team member has paid off so well.

'I hope that this project will eventually act as a very valuable tool which can help the athletes achieve laurels. Receiving this grant has opened up new avenues and given the team enough support to make this a world class product.'

A total of 18 projects were submitted to UK Sport from final year undergraduate or masters-level students in the disciplines of engineering, science, medicine or the arts.

Eight finalists were chosen to present their projects to an expert panel at UK Sport’s Head Office in London. The judges who decided on the winning idea were UK Sport’s Head of Research and Innovation, Dr Scott Drawer, Sydney 2000 Olympic gold medallist Jason Queally, and UK Sport’s Ideas4Innovation Project Manager Alison Macpherson.

The successful project was based on the development of a novel tool to assist athletes in their preparation for performing at, and insight of, competition venues. It provides a means for the athletes to familiarise themselves with their competition arena and all visual cues to assist strategy prior to any competitive race.

Mangala Kodagoda said: 'I am extremely happy that our work is being recognised and supported by UK Sport. This is a really good opportunity for us as university students to actually create something useful for athletes, and hopefully make their lives a little bit easier. The team is very excited about this and we're looking forward to doing our best to make this project a success.'

UK Sport will now invest £25,000 in the further development of the winning idea, allowing the students to continue their research.

Find out more about the postgraduate study opportunites on offer at Sheffield Hallam from the University's website.

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