Four years on and the Siemens Cyber Junkyard (CJY) challenge has grown from relatively anonymous beginnings to being an industry recognised event, a standalone initiative bridging the gap between learning institutions and the realities of the marketplace. This year saw unprecedented entry levels with 10 functional projects in the finals displaying what the industry needs most - innovation, quality and a multidisciplinary approach that prepares students for the `real world'.
The awards ceremony at Emperors Palace in October was a grand culmination to the R2,5M that Siemens Automation and Drives (A&D) division invested in the 2006 challenge. As the showpiece for the best young talent in the country, the competition gives students the chance to be noticed by top industry players and a distinct advantage over their academic peers - they are more prepared for life after the lecture hall.
The challenge gives students practical experience with a wide range of products they may encounter if they stay in the field of manufacture or automation - equipment they might only have heard of in lectures such as programmable logic controllers (PLCs), touch panels, motors, drives, pneumatic equipment and actuator and sensor interface (AS-i) bus technologies. Apart from growing practical experience with new technologies, the challenge aims to develop a wide range of essential human skills and the scope of the human-machine interface (HMI) has broadened from year to year.
Conan Jones, CJY Administrator, says: "We aimed to put pressure on the students and the institutions to make up a multidisciplinary team, to have mechanical, electrical, instrumentation, industrial, even your IT students writing the software and programming the HMI." Chief adjudicator Stefan Lamprecht reiterates this: "We encourage an inter-disciplinary approach to stimulate collaboration because, as you know, when you go out there into practice you are not going to be surrounded by people who think like you. You are going to need to collaborate with various disciplines."
Says Jones: "Interestingly, we saw all the entrants choosing very different options when it came to selecting which of the four components would be applied manually." Any one of the four components - a stainless steel key ring tag which functions as a bottle opener, a U-shaped aluminium clasp, the conventional 32 mm key ring and a pair of identical plastic rivets which had to be perfectly aligned in order for them to engage - had to be applied manually and this demanded innovation, the primary force driving the industry.
"We looked at a number of factors from the electrical and mechanical design, the team dynamics, even soft issues like what access to resources they had. Leadership, documentation, did everyone get equal role responsibility, or did some feel they were doing too menial a job, were all taken into account. Then aesthetics, good industry practice, wiring, safety issues which were a primary criterion, and obviously the vital minutiae like were there sharp corners and edges. We looked at a lot of other aspects such as access to a workshop and trained technicians, to Siemens A&D System Integrator (SI) partners, to funding, financing, did they have compressed air, electricity, and so on," according to head adjudicator Stefan Lamprecht.
North-West University (Potchefstroom Campus) emerged as the clear winners. Of the possible 120 points allocated to the various aspects of the adjudication, they achieved 108. The aspects that they excelled in above the other competitors were mechanical design, PLC functionality, HMI functionality, safety features, innovation, wiring and above all, the team dynamics.
The winning team won R100 000 worth of Siemens A&D equipment and R30 000 worth of Festo equipment for the institution. The individual students and the supervising lecturer each won three weeks worth of training courses from Siemens A&D SITRAIN facility (worth approximately R20 000 each). They also walked away with a Fujitsu-Siemens LOOX PDA N830 - complete with cellphone capabilities GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS for 3G, also GPS positioning. Only 20 of these are in the country at present, seven of which in the hands of these students!
Runners-up, University of Johannesburg - Doornfontein campus, made their mark for their HMI functionality, implementation of the Festo equipment and also scoring highly for their mechanical design and PLC functionality. This realised them a score of 93. What was impressive with their assembly system, was the 10 piece multiple assembly mechanism, using the same actuators to assemble more than one item at a time.
The runners-up won R20 000 worth of Festo equipment for the institution. Students and their supervisor also netted two weeks worth of SITRAIN training (worth approximately R14 000). They each received a Siemens A&D LOGO! NewsBox starter kit to implement some PLC type functionality at home for building automation or any other innovative application that they might apply it to.
Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University made an impact with their mechanical design, as well as their implementation of the required safety features. They also utilised the Festo equipment very well and secured the third place with a score of 79.
Third place got R10 000 worth of Festo equipment, a week's SITRAIN training per student and supervisor, as well as a Siemens branded GIGASET A140 Duo cordless phone set.
This year Siemens A&D brought on board Festo to supply each entrant with pneumatic equipment. Festo's investment of R280 000 worth of equipment (retained by the competing institutions) and R60 000 worth of prizes at the ceremony went a long way to raising the stakes this year. "In the first two years of the challenge some institutions had a wonderful assortment of pneumatic Festo products, but not all entrants received these. To level the playing fields we approached Festo and requested they come on board as co-sponsors in terms of equipment supplied to all competitors and to join us in conceptualising the 2006 challenge," says Jones.
Compliments of Crown Publications
For more information contact Keshin Govender, Siemens Southern Africa, +27 (0)11 652 2412, [email protected], www.siemens.co.za
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