HKUST Students Named Champion in Greater China Design Competition of Institution of Mechanical Engineers
A team of HKUST students garnered three awards in the 6th Greater China Design Competition of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) Hong Kong Branch, a university student design competition among eight Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Macau tertiary institutions held at HKUST on March 25-26. The Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) is the host of this year’s competition and it is also the first time that the competition was held in Hong Kong.
Out of the five awards in the competition, the HKUST team won three of them - the Champion (tied with a team from CUHK), the Most Innovative Design Award and the Most Popular Design Award. The team comprised four MAE undergraduate students, who are Chengqi Lu, Man Yi Wong, Tsz Tai Chan, and Man Fai Chung, as well as two international students from the University of Iowa, who are Samuel Fox and Wenbo Wang.
These six students are members of the Virtual International Project Team (VIPT), a joint international project initiative between the MAE Department of HKUST and the Department of Mechanical Engineering of University of Iowa launched in May 2016. The initiative’s aim is to give an international exposure to students of both institutions through working together on capstone design projects. Students of VIPT are also provided with a travelling opportunity to go to their collaborating institution and meet with their teammates to discuss on the project and engage in educational activities.
The topic of this year’s competition is Mine Industry Handling. The eight participating teams (CUHK, HKU, HKUST, IVE (Tsing Yi), PolyU, Guangzhou College of South China University of Technology, South China University of Technology, and University of Macau) were required to design and build a trolley combined with both lifting and releasing mechanisms, thereby carrying weights and climbing up a ramp propelled using a potential energy generated by two liters of water. Over the past seven months of preparation, the HKUST and Iowa students faced the challenge of discussing their project via emails and working in the time difference between US and Hong Kong. However, with their can-do spirit and collaborative mindset, they were able to finalize the prototype before the competition and the full team, including the two Iowa students, was at HKUST to join the competition.
The competition aims to provide a platform for engineering students to demonstrate their engineering knowledge and strengthen their presentation skills by designing an innovative prototype design. The two-day event included a presentation session, where students presented their design and answered questions from judges, and a demonstration session, where students have to prove their design by meeting the competition’s requirement. In addition to members of the eight participating institutions and engineering professionals from IMechE, the event was also joined by many local primary students and their parents.
Related links:
