Wearable digital ski coach scoops innovation award

Imperial's Motion Metrics won the Santander Universities Entrepreneurship Award for their project Carv, taking home the £15,000 prize.

The awards, open to students or recent graduates at Santander’s Partner Universities, reward student and graduate entrepreneurs by offering cash prizes, mentoring and start-up support.

The Carv tracking device

Carv beat off a number of other teams to take the first prize of £15,000 in the start-up category. The team had to pitch to the team of expert judges at the Final, which took place on 30 June.

Inspired by Olympic technology, the wearable device gives the kind of feedback and knowledge previously only available to elite skiers.

Using a smart boot insert and a clip on tracking device, Carv measures motion and pressure distribution and relays feedback through to earphones in real-time.

The device connects wirelessly to a smartphone, providing information and analysis ranging from simple, actionable feedback for casual skiers to detailed metrics and analysis for advanced and professional users.

Carv interface

Motion Metrics is made up of Jamie Grant (Business School), Pruthvikar Reddy (Mechanical Engineering) and Bo Xuan Hon (Aerospace Engineering), and Samit Patel.

Michelle Kent, Jamie Grant and Robin Foale

Robin Foale, Managing Director of Santander Universities UK, commented: “Student entrepreneurs are an important contributor to the UK economy and it’s great to see an increase of over 30 per cent in entrepreneurial appetite since last year. It’s also encouraging that many plan to stick with their business as their main career after graduation when the potential for these businesses to flourish will be vast.

“Santander recognises the importance of supporting and encouraging these young business leaders to dare to invent, innovate, create and be entrepreneurial and this is the very essence of our Entrepreneurship Awards.”

Jamie discussing features of the Carv coach during a on-snow session

This is the latest success for the Motion Metrics team, who earlier this year raised over $275,000 when they launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds to take Carv to market.

The team are currently testing and streamlining Carv. Over the summer they are working with skiers, including the US Ski Team, to develop the final product which they hope to begin shipping in November.

Carv is now available to pre-order at to motionmetrics.co