The PneuDrive Challenge road show team, headed by Rene Rose of SEW-Eurodrive and Brian Abbott of Festo, recently delivered an overview of the competition at the Tshwane University of Technology. Interest from Professor Johan Benade and some TUT students was generated after a chance visit by one of the students to the competition‘s website www.pneudrive.co.za
Although TUT students only have six weeks to achieve what others may have been designing for six months now, there is confidence that a strong entry will come out of this group. In fact, the types of questions that were being asked by students indicated that some extensive thinking has already taken place and that there is a self-belief in the potential of their group. If the TUT students manage to combine their enthusiasm with a creative and accurate design, there is a good chance that they may win a trip to the SEW-Eurodrive and Festo head offices in Germany and R100 000 worth of equipment for their university.
During the visit Rene Rose highlighted for students that two international judges, Tobias Nittel from SEW-Eurodrive, and Andreas Keller from Festo will be part of the judging panel. Rose mentioned that the judges would focus on elements such as creativity, business acumen and technical accuracy. Abbott demonstrated a range of pneumatic components in the Festo Expotainer and the interest shown by TUT students illustrated the importance of combining engineering theory with the practicalities of a real production line.
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