City of Liverpool College students drive innovation at new Clatterbridge Cancer Centre

The City of Liverpool College has partnered with international engineering enterprise Laing O’Rourke and The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, one of the country’s leading cancer centres.

The partnership has been designed to inspire students with the digital technologies used to develop the brand-new cancer centre and promote the modern careers now available in the construction industry.

‘Project Innovation’ will see students of The City of Liverpool College’s Computer Science Digital courses collaborate with Laing O’Rourke to develop both augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) applications.

For the first project, students will create an augmented reality interactive app, which is designed to help speed up maintenance requirements at the cancer centre. The AR app would allow staff to see all of the machinery in any given room along with their maintenance requirements. This will in turn be linked to a database which could ultimately order and schedule maintenance automatically, dramatically speeding up the process and saving precious time.

The virtual reality app will form the second project and would be designed for staff to have the ability to see maintenance requirements and interact with objects, while being fully immersed in the building from elsewhere, allowing them to navigate around the building and stripping back the walls for a ‘behind the scenes’ view.

Estefania Alves, digital engineer at Laing O’Rourke, said:

“Construction is a progressive industry, constantly adopting new technology and digital methodologies to enhance efficiency, to reduce construction time, waste, cost and to create a safer workplace throughout the whole project lifecycle.  For the industry to keep innovating it is vital that skills and experience is brought in from other creative industries.

“Working with The City of Liverpool College allows us to bring a fresh perspective to developing these vital tools, while supporting the future workforce to develop their skills.”

The partnership will provide students with experience and unique insight into the construction industry , as well as having the opportunity to provide support to the brand new The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre.

Students will work closely with programmers and coders from Laing O’Rourke’s digital engineering department as well as Clatterbridge to develop the apps, with the aim of the project creating a lasting legacy by providing students with the chance to work on a real industry project.

Elaine Bowker, principal of The City of Liverpool College, said:

“The partnerships that we have across The City of Liverpool College are designed to provide our students with unique opportunities real world experience. We are passionate about ensuring that we are at the cutting edge of emerging technologies and providing our students with the skills they need to enter the world of work.

“For our students to be given the chance to work with a multinational organisation such as Laing O’Rourke and develop a truly innovative tool for The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre is an opportunity like no other. We look forward to seeing the results of this partnership come to fruition.”

Once developed, the apps will be piloted for The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre and, if successful, will be rolled out on a wider scale.

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