The South African Institute of Electrical Engineers (SAIEE) hosted its annual National Student Project Competition 2007 at Wits University late last year. The entrants were all final year students and were judged according to international standards on a range of technical, academic and communication skills criteria.
The SAIEE has been involved in transformation and skills upgrading for many years and has focused on supporting the development of engineering expertise among a broad and representative sector of the country's population.
The competition serves to stimulate and recognise practical engineering projects that display innovative concepts and the highest quality of presentation.
SAIEE president Ian McKechnie explains that there are three main areas which the competition addresses: innovation and social impact; technical and academic quality; and presentation and communication.
"Communications skills are high on the priority list," he says. "It is essential for engineers to be able to motivate and communicate about projects to colleagues and other stakeholders, including people who will fund them - who may not be engineers themselves. The standards applied in the judging emphasise solid technical execution, high quality academic documentation, presentation and the communication skills that are critical in engineering.
"All the presentations were of a high standard. They were well presented and explained and all shared a core focus on using innovative engineering to address particular challenges. We are very pleased that the competition is producing such high quality entries," concludes McKechnie.
In the university section, first prize went to Stellenbosch University student, Malan Joubert, for his work on 'Swarm Robotic Colonies'. Second prize was awarded to Wits University's Sarah Middleton and David Walters for their research into 'Energy Scavenging Wireless Transmitters'.
First prize in the universities of technology section went to the Vaal University of Technology's Volker Freise for his presentation on the 'Monitoring and Management of Remote Subterranean Valve Chambers'. The Cape Peninsula University of Technology won second prize in this category for Ryan Jardine's work on 'Nodal forces in electrical machines'.
The Institute's Merit award went to Grant Seady of the University of Johannesburg for his innovative 'Talkabet Spelling Aid'.
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