27 IN FOCUS Students chool of Engineering new arrivals had a great opportunity to immediately try out their design and build skills on entering the School in Fall by constructing a chemical battery-powered vehicle as part of the First Year Cornerstone Engineering Design Project Course. In this interdisciplinary credit-bearing introduction to engineering, students learn what they need to know in online modules in electronics, programming, and mechanics early in the semester. They then bring that new knowledge to their teams to design and build a system to control their “Chem-O Roader” and compete with other teams to see whose vehicle is the fastest, best controlled, and most stable. The nal O -Roader includes two vehicles – the lead vehicle that pulls and controls while the trailer carries the cargo. The power for the trailer comes from a chemical battery, designed and constructed by the students, while the cargo is a cup of water. The car has to operate smoothly enough not to spill the water! The cornerstone course is speci cally designed to enable rst-year students to meet faculty and more senior students from di erent engineering departments. The goal is to give participants deeper insights into the various elds, and subsequent careers, to help them in selecting their major at the end of their rst year in the School. The chemical battery-powered car project, rst o ered as a summer course for all students in , replaces the previous rst-year cornerstone course project focused on airship building. It is available in Fall and Spring semesters. Full speed ahead for rst-year students A Civil and Environmental Engineering team triumphed at the TECO Technological Innovation Contest, gaining the LEKO Low-carbon Technical Award for their novel technology for low energy electrical odor control of sludge. The innovation controls hydrogen sul de production from excess sludge and enhances dewaterability. Members of the team comprised PhD students LI Xiling, XUE Weiqi, ZAN Feixiang and ZENG Qian. PhD students CHE Yulin and WANG Lipeng, both Computer Science and Engineering, won the championship in the th Alibaba Middleware Performance Challenge. The contest focused on how to deal with a “trillion messages”, simulating the real-world computational challenge of handling the annual November mega sales day organized by Taobao/Tianmao online mall. Over , teams from seven countries and regions joined the competition. The Robocon sub-team of the HKUST Robotics Team won the championship in the Robocon Hong Kong Contest. This was the ninth time the sub-team had received the top award since the competition was launched in . Two teams from HKUST took part, Fiery Dragon and War Dragon, with Fiery Dragon becoming the overall winner. Participants had to build robots that could engage in a shuttlecock-throwing knockout competition against other teams. The contest drew a total of teams from six local tertiary institutions. Student awards & achievements A student-designed chemical battery-powered vehicle in action during the summer course. S
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