South Africa's top young engineering minds will over the next few months be battling it out in classrooms at tertiary institutions around the country in a bid to emerge victorious in the inaugural Siemens Southern Africa Cyber Junk Yard competition.
The Cyber Junk Yard, the first of its kind in South Africa, was launched by Siemens as an annual event aimed at encouraging innovations at Technikon and University level. A total of nine tertiary institutions have entered the event, fielding between one and 60 students per institution.
"The aim is innovation. Through this we are showing tertiary institutions how to contact and work together with big industry in the development of new ideas. If we can get institutions to generate new ideas that people can get excited about, we can create some sort of boom in the field of applications, which can only benefit our country," says Martin Taverner, the Cyber Junk Yard Administrator.
The teams have to develop a workable container-moving hoist, with Siemens placing strong emphasis on its practical application in projects the company is involved in, such as the COEGA harbour development.
Each team will be given an opportunity to purchase R25 000 worth of control and automation equipment from Siemens Southern Africa in order to execute their project.
Siemens has appointed a technical specialist, called a 'champion', to assist each team with their project and offer them free training on the products they use. The teams will have to file a detailed report on their project, including its software and hardware specifications as well as its application in the industry, by 30 September, this year.
The final adjudication will take place at the Sandton Convention Centre in Gauteng in October, where an independent panel of judges will assess the projects. The winners will be announced at a gala event and presented with a further R100 000 worth of equipment donated by Siemens Automation & Drives to their tertiary institution. Two of the team members will also win a trip to the 2004 Hanover Trade and Technical Fair in Germany.
Taverner has already visited four of the institutions, and says he is highly impressed with what he has seen so far. "Places such as Potchefstroom University have entered as many as 60 students. They are going all out on this, and are even including the project as 25% of their students' practical mark this year. The PE Technikon is the first to have actually placed an order with Siemens for equipment. So the message to the other contestants is to get going fast."
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