The PneuDrive Challenge is drawing to a close. The sponsors, SEW-Eurodrive and Festo, have begun gearing students up to make the final design and business proposals in order to meet the submission date of 19 October. There is much anticipation about the entries from the third and fourth year mechatronic engineering students competing in this year’s competition: ‘Engineering a Better Life for South African Communities’.
Through the years the quality of design proposals has improved with each year, two universities were approached in the past year with a view to purchasing the designs of their students. The judging panel, normally made up of representatives from the two sponsoring companies, prominent local engineering specialists and international representatives, will convene from 7-8 November. With this year’s competition calling on students to apply their engineering aptitude and creativity to try and ease the socio-economic challenges faced by less fortunate communities, the panel is expecting to be hard-pressed to find a winner. Some of the criteria that will be applied during the evaluation and scoring process to help in this regard include creativity, technical accuracy and engineering practicality. However, business acumen, budgeting, project planning and the degree of professional presentation will also make a difference in the minds of judges.
Addressing the skills gap
Over the last couple of years, the principle of shifting students away from a focus only on academic theory, and to start exposing them to the realities of the working world has grown increasingly important. Rene Rose, general manager of communications at SEW-Eurodrive: “The engineering student competition was an idea born six years ago when we needed to find synergy between business growth and social responsibility. We have managed to build on the significance of the competition year upon year, to the point where at least five participating universities now include the competition as a part of their curriculum. This is a clear indication of how important it has become as an element to address the skills gap in our economy.”
Rene Rose.
Brian Abbott, product manager at Festo South Africa states, “We have a strong belief in the value of this competition and how it offers innovative students an opportunity to work with each other and learn about new technology on a platform that emphasises business acumen.”
The winning team will receive an all expenses paid trip to Germany where they will visit the head offices of the sponsors. In addition to this, the winning university will receive SEW-Eurodrive and Festo equipment to the value of R100 000. The remaining universities who submit entries will receive equipment to the value of R40 000.
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