Southampton engineers reach the final of a major national competition

Aleksander Lidtke who is studying MEng Aeronautics and Astronautics with a specialism in Spacecraft Engineering and MEng Ship Science student Enrico Anderlini won places on the final shortlist of three from more than 500 entries from 100 universities.

Aleksander's impressive third year project examined the feasibility of a Solar Power Satellite to provide energy by collecting power from the sun in space. "This concept is innovative and imaginative and the level of analysis undertaken is comparable with work one would expect to see in a funded contract rather than a third year undergraduate project ... overall, over the last 20 years, this is the best project I have supervised," says Dr Adrian Tatnall.

He was awarded consistently high marks (more than 80 percent) in his first, second and third year examinations and his individual project was judged the best in his year. During his studies, Aleksander undertook two internships, one at the European Space Agency's technical headquarters in The Netherlands.

Professor Pandeli Temerel who supervised Enrico says: "He is equally excellent in analytical and practical subjects. There is no subject, so far, in which he performed below the first class standard. As the supervisor of the nominated project, I witnessed his rapid progress from someone with no experience of CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics using RANS) to an expert of the standard I would expect from my 2nd year PhD students."

Enrico has completed the third year of his MEng: his average marks in the first two years were in excess of 85 per cent, putting him at the top of the class. He spent the second semester of this third year at the Technical University of Hamburg Harburg (TUHH).

The SET awards are regarded as Europe's most important awards for science and engineering undergraduates. The best students in 14 subject areas received their prizes in front of an audience of leading academics and industrialists at a ceremony at Kensington Town Hall.

Previous award winners from Southampton have included Joseph Scurrah for his work on Offshore Wind Turbine Foundation Loads. He received the award for the Best Civil Engineering Student in 2010.