Mechanical engineering students from The University of Manchester have enjoyed an unprecedented clean sweep of all available awards in the north-west regional final of the 2023 Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) Design Challenge.
Two teams of Manchester first-year students entered the competition - a full-day event held at Salford University on 26 April - and competed against teams from the University of Bolton, Lancaster University, Manchester Metropolitan University, the University of Central Lancashire, and Salford University.
The Design Challenge provides undergraduates with a taste of the ’real world’ of engineering, challenging them to design, create, present and compete with a device made to strict technical specifications.
It gives them real industry experience, practical employability skills, and enhanced business and team building skills - all within a set time frame.
The challenge for 2023 was to design, manufacture and build an internal pipe climber to climb the inside of a 2.5 metre high, 100 mm diameter clear pipe, switch direction at the top and return to the bottom in the shortest time, at a cost of no more than £50.
Manchester’s Team 1, of Orhan Bagashov, Warnakulasuriya Fernando, Jared Flaxman, William Sandford and Emma Stevenson, finished first overall with the fastest time and won Best Presentation.
Team 2 - Sophie Hoole, Abigail Johnson, Ioannis Kafkas, Lucas O’Donoghue, Stanley Palmer and Liberty Tanner - had the next fastest time and finished second overall. They also won Best Poster, Best Design and the Peer Review.
Manchester students’ clean sweep at IMechE Design Challenge regional final
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