Competitions develop under-graduates’ management and business skills as well as engineering, says Caroline Hayes.

There are several initiatives to encourage creativity and competitiveness, some local and some with an international edge.

Hyperloop challenges

TU-Munich-HyperloopThe Hyperloop project for mass transportation always attracts interest, and under-graduate engineers can be a part of its realisation.

The Hyperloop concept uses electrically propelled, passenger pods to travel through a near-vacuum tube at speeds comparable to those of aircraft.

The University of Edinburgh has created HypEd, a society devoted to accelerating the development of Hyperloop and implementing the technology in the UK.

The society has taken part in UK and international competitions. Since it was founded in 2015, it has grown to over 200 members of international students across academic disciplines.

The concept of hyperloop has support in industry too, with companies such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Virgin Hyperloop One, HTT, and Arrivo created to develop the idea and technology. HypEd was a finalist in the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod competition, in which it built two functioning prototype pods.

The HypEd project has a history of success in our competitions too. In 2017, readers at Electronicsweekly.com voted it the research project they thought would have the biggest commercial impact in the following five years.

In 2018, Vladislav Rumiantsev (pictured), an electronics project manager at the University of Edinburgh, won an EW BrightSparks award, marking him as one of the brightest young engineers in the UK. He described his role as the electronics team lead in the HypEd project, as where he developed team- and project‑management skills alongside electronics achievements.

Continuing HypEd’s pattern of successes, in 2019 Maisie Edwards‑Mowforth, Team HypEd’s static technical team lead, also won an EW BrightSparks award.

Another hyperloop team is supported by Panasonic Industry Europe. TUM Hyperloop team is drawn from students attending the Technical University of Munich. To date, the Hyperloop Pod competition has been won four times (2015-2019) by teams from the university. Its students use components like Pansonic’s EX-L221 laser sensors that constantly measure the position of the pod inside the tube. The robust, precise sensors can withstand the 10g of deceleration the pod generates when braking.

Each student team from around the world developed a pod that is guided on an aluminium rail. It must accelerate to the highest speed possible and decelerate to a complete stop in a mile‑long evacuated tube.

The TUM Hyperloop pod uses eight electric motors with a combined power of 320kW – which accelerate the carbon fibre chassis with up to 2g. With a top speed of 463kmph, the TUM Hyperloop team had the fastest pod in the latest race, held in Los Angeles in July 2019.

Engineers without borders

Engineers Without Borders UK has launched Engineering for People Design Challenge 2020 in partnership with Engineers Without Borders South Africa and Engineers Without Borders USA.

The competition engages first and second-year university students to consider the social, economic and environmental impact of their engineering by inviting them to propose a solution that could be applied to a real-life problem affecting people on a global scale.

The first challenge was held in 2011 and it is now part of the undergraduate curriculum at many UK universities.

This year, the competition has been extended to more than 7,000 students based on more than three continents.

The 2020 challenge focuses on the Makers Valley community in Johannesburg, South Africa. About 45,500 people live in Makers Valley, which is on the eastern edge of Johannesburg’s central business district. It encompasses small towns which have seen rapid population growth and many of the inhabitants are out of work. The Makers Valley Project is a collective that is working towards urban renewal.

In the 2020 Engineering for People Design Challenge, students are asked to design a solution that addresses the interconnected issues faced around the world as urban environments and infrastructure change. Engineers Without Borders’ partners create engineering briefs based on real‑world problems faced by people in Makers Valley.

Engineering briefs include, for example, the requirement to consider energy and water supplies, sanitation, the built environment, transport, waste management, information communications technology (ICT) and local industry.

A project entry must be appropriate to the economic, environmental and social context.

Emma Crichton, head of engineering at Engineers Without Borders UK, said: “Our real-life design project provides a platform for students to truly understand how to develop engineering skills with a globally responsible mindset and place people at the heart of their designs.”

Racing ahead

Another successful project is Team Bath Racing. This is run entirely by students from the University of Bath, and sponsored by ANYS, Charcroft, Igus, Mentor Graphics and Relec Electronics, as well as Cosworth and the Bugatti Trust.

Teams design and build a single‑seat race car to compete in Formula Student competitions (a university‑level motorsports competition) around the world.

Team Bath Racing won the FS Czech in 2016 and has achieved podium finishes across Europe.

Its alumni have gone on to work in advanced engineering and management roles at world-leading companies, reports the project.