LONDON -- The winner of London’s International Student Innovation Award 2016 is Luca Alessandrini, an Italian student from Urbino at Imperial College London, the award announced Thursday.

  Luca, aged 30, recently graduated from Imperial College London won the prize for London’s most innovative international student with his invention of a violin made out of spider’s silk and resin.

 He beat hundreds of other contestants from 49 countries with his unique creation. When the instrument is played, the silk makes the musical case vibrate, making it emit a sound that can be modified by varying the fusion of the two materials in a particular way.

 The combination of silk and resin actually produces a unique tone that can be altered by modifying the quantities of the two original components.

 Luca, who snapped up the 10,000-pound winning prize with this creation, explained that the new material allows you to personalize the acoustic of the instruments with a level of control that is very difficult to attain with other modern materials like carbon fibre, for example.

 The 30-year-old from Urbino said, “studying in London has been one of the best experiences of my life and this initiative has allowed me to turn my plans into a reality. I spent two years working full time together with 38 people from 14 countries and I cannot imagine another more stimulating environment than this city.”

 nkd