Saturday, January 28, 2012

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What's the PneuDrive Challenge About?

The aim of the PneuDrive Challenge is to give the best mechanical, electronic and mechatronic engineering students a chance to use their talent to bring together engineering theory, the latest technology in drive engineering and pneumatics and business reality.

By creating a competition environment that requires proposing, designing and assembling innovative engineering ideas, students are given an opportunity to experience a wide range of problems and project issues that they would typically need to solve in the real world.
The practical experience of analysing, debating, designing and assembling an innovative engineering idea, gives participating students business and engineering experience that goes way beyond typical lecture room experiences.

As sponsors of the competition, SEW Eurodrive and Festo recognise the importance of business in partnering with higher education institutions to help address the enormous pressures that they are under to prepare skilled engineering students for the labour market.

Need more information? 

If you are a student, lecturer or university that wants to enquire about entering the competition, click here to send us an email for more information.

What's Up For Grabs?

The prize for 2011 was an all expenses paid trip for four students to the SEW Eurodrive and Festo Head Offices in Germany. The "winning university" also had an opportunity to order R 100,000 worth of SEW Eurodrive and Festo equipment.

Universities who submitted final entries qualified for R 40,000 worth of free equipment for their universities.

Competition Guidelines

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Access the  PneuDrive Challengse 2012 Rules document to review the framework and criteria of the recent competition.

The FAQ section of this website also contains some valuable introductory information.

Follow us on social networks

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Follow the competition on Twitter to receive competition updates, news and information: Join the competition's Facebook Group to connect with people who are interested in the PneuDrive Challenge and engineering competitions in general:

 

Media Information and Press Releases

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An important element of the experiential learning opportunity that is created by the PneuDrive Challenge is that it also introduces to students the value of generating press and media information about their designs and efforts. This in turn helps students create an online presence for themselves which will be valuable when they finally graduate and start the business end of their careers.

Use the links below to view the types of press information pieces that are published about the competition and stduents that may have taken part:

01 Jan 2012 - Cape Business News - Sunnyside Packer a Winner
Nov to Dec 2011 - SA Instrumentation and Control - Various Press Releases posted
31 Oct - Entries are in - 6 of the Best and 2 for Good measure - Engineering News

Click here for a summary of press information relating to the competition.

Recent News

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Recent News and Updates

Use the links below to keep up to date with recent news relating to the competition:

26 January 2012

3 dates booked for the PneuDrive Road-Show:
1. Friday 10th Feb - Late Morning - Tshwane University of Technology
2. Monday 13 Feb - Mid Morning - University of Johannesburg
3. Wed 22 Feb - Mid-day - WITS University

23 January 2012

Discussions and plans for appropriate dates for the road-show and Expotainer to start visiting universities have started.

Nov to Dec 2011 - SA Instrumentation and Control - Various Press Releases posted

A media partner that prints updates and press information on a regular basis.

Nov to Dec 2011 - SA Instrumentation and Control - Various Press Releases posted

A media partner that prints updates and press information on a regular basis.

13 Dec - Feedback from Judges, Professors and Students Published

Some interesting, valuable and challenging feedback was generated and has been published.

Click here to review some of the comments that were received

09 Dec 2011 - Top 4 Entries Loaded to the Website and Good News for 2012

After four successful years of running the competition, SEW Eurodrive and FESTO have once again committed to sponsoring the PneuDrive Challenge engineering student competition in 2012.

Rules and guidelines for the 2012 competition have been reviewed and updated, and are available on the website.

Click here to review a summary of the guidelines.

Click here to download the 2012 Rules and Guidelines

Summaries of the top four entries have been uploaded to this website:

1. Stellenbosch University - Sunny Side Apple Packer

2. Tshwane University of Technology – AIR-BOT

3. University of the Witwatersrand – Automated Restaurant

4. University of Johannesburg – BlitzBurger

22 Nov - Pick of the Crop - PR for the Winning Team

Right-click, copy and paste into a graphics package for a high res view of teh PR piece.

16 Nov - Stellenbosch Score a Close Win

A Press Release from SEW Eurodrive summarising the judges decisions was sent out to their media and press partners.

Click here to access the Press Release.

 

Media Partners and Endorsements

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Engineering News

One of the media partners for this year is Engineering News who will publish regular updates and newsflashes regarding competing universities and the designs they are working on.

South African Institite of Electrical Engineers

We are pleased to announce that the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers (SAIEE) have endorsed and will support the PneuDrive Challenge.

South African Institution of Mechanical Engineering

On the back of the endorsement from the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers, recent news is that the South African Institution of Mechanical Engineering (SAIMechE) have also agreed to endorse the PneuDrive Challenge.

The 2011 PneuDrive Challenge winners are:

 Stellenbosch Score a Close Win Over TUT and WITS

After two intensive days of judging, the panel of judges concluded and agreed that Stellenbosch University’s Sunnyside Packer was the winning entry. The Air Bot design from the Tshwane University of Technology was a very close second (the first time in the history of the 4 year competition that scores have been so close), and the Automated Restaurant from WITS placed third.

The Blitz Burger from the University of Johannesburg received were commended for their innovative ideas.

SunnySide Apple Packer

Students Norval Geldenhuys, Hardus Scheepers, Cornel Liebenberg and Daniël Malan delivered a design report that is essentially a "high-speed, accurate and selective apple packer".

They noted that because apple packing is currently done by hand, many potential problems with labour – including inconsistent quality – are experienced by farms and distributors.
Their proposed packing machine is designed to improve the marketability of first-grade boxed apples. This is accomplished by boxing “red” apples (any apples with some red colouring) with their best-looking and best-coloured side facing upwards.
Packing apples in this manner produces a much more desirable box than a randomly packed box, an obvious benefit to retailers.

Stellenbosch's Winning Team, from left to right:
Prof Anton Basson; Norval Geldenhuys; Hardus Scheepers; Cornel Liebenberg; Daniël Malan

Click here to read the Technical and Design Summary of their Sunny Side Packer.

The 2010 PneuDrive Challenge winners are:

The University of Stellenbosch took the top spot for the third time in a row in this competition with their “Tshabalala Soccer Ball Shooting Machine”.

The design, done by four Stellenbosch Mechanical Engineering students, started from the premise that there are potential shortcomings for many soccer goalkeeper and set-piece training sessions. For example, because many players may be required to take kicks at goal (which limits their training time), and their incoming shots are in effect predictable (which contrasts with the reality of a soccer game). The Tshabalala Soccer Ball Shooting machine is desigend to simulate set-piece training as well as generate random and unpredictable kicks on goal, which could help teams maximise the training time of out-field players and heighten the effectiveness of goalkeeper training.

For more information about the winning entry,  click here.

Well done to the winning team and Professor Basson ..!

 

The University of KwaZulu-Natal, supervised by Anthony Walker came in second with their automatic goal shooting device for goalkeeper training. The students were Calvin Cunniffe, Cameron Israel, Leemeshen Naidoo, and Friedrich W H Schulenburg. For more information about this entry, click here.

The winning students from Stellenbosch University enjoying their trip in Gernamy:

 Alex Oelofse; Ivan Deetlefs; Ryan du Plessis and Thabo Mofokeng.

 

Copyright 2010 SEW Eurodrive