Ingenious ideas with an environmental edge have taken inventive students from De Montfort University (DMU) Leicester to the finals of a national engineering showdown.
Two canny teams of undergraduates from DMU will take on rivals from universities across the UK in the Engineering for People Design Challenge this month.
The battle of the brainwaves sees first and second-year students tackle real-world challenges in areas including energy, water supply and sanitation, transport and waste management.
DMU Mechanical Engineering students Jayan Mistri, Callum Turner, Aravienth Sripaskaran, Patricia Pathmarajh and George Ngige have an entry titled The Re-Build, which features reuse of plastic waste.
Their coursemates Amardeep Brar, Arif Rahman, Nirosan Vemaleswaran and Gul Zaman submitted an idea for a solar farm with battery support.
The annual competition is run by Engineers Without Borders UK, a charity formed by students at Cambridge University in 2001. It aims to change how engineering is perceived, taught and practiced.
Thousands of students from 25 universities took part in the Engineering for People Design Challenge. Judges have whittled the entries down to just 36 teams for the finals, which take place on Monday, June 19 at the striking The Crystal building at the Royal Victoria Dock in east London.
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Dr Leticia Ozawa-Meida, of the School of Engineering and Sustainable Development at DMU, teaches the two teams of students, along with her colleague, Dr Kegong Diao.
“We both feel proud of the students as this is the first time that two teams from DMU are selected for the national finals.
“The feedback of the reviewers that selected the teams was very positive, commending not only their innovative ideas that could greatly benefit communities in developing countries, but also their application of project management concepts, such as risk and cost management, into their projects.”
Daniel Craddock, education projects manager at Engineers Without Borders, said: “This year the reviewers were particularly impressed by the high standard of entries into the competition.
“It was a tough decision but we managed to select the top teams from universities across the UK and Ireland.”
The winners will jet off on an educational trip to Mexico in July and August. The runners up and the winners of the people’s prizes will receive £150 education bursaries for each competing team member.
Posted on Friday 16 June 2017