Tough competition for the Best Final Year Project Presentation at SU's Dept of Mechanical & Mecha...

Tough competition for the 2021 SAIMechE competition for the Best Final Year Project Presentation at Stellenbosch University’s Department of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering

Despite the mayhem that cloaked the end of 2021, amid the 4th Covid wave, Stellenbosch University’s final year students were working their hearts out to finish up their final reports and deliver the final presentations of their final research and design projects. SAIMechE typically holds a competition at the end of the academic year at each institution to award hard-working students for the Best Final Year Project Presentation. Stellenbosch University decided to give our students a break and postpone the competition to early 2022. Four students each from SU’s undergraduate Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering programmes were nominated to participate in the competition, which was judged by the SAIMechE Western Cape branch committee: Dirk Findeis of UCT and Tony Huggett of Hovis Logistics Consulting. There was stiff competition between the candidates, all of whom delivered excellent presentations showcasing innovative and professional projects.

In the words of Tony Huggett: “The topics covered by the mechanical and mechatronic students were notable for their diversity and the challenges presented to the students. The applicability of the projects in the commercial world of engineering is to be applauded.”

The winners of the 2021 awards were:

• Matthew Blackwell, Mechanical Engineering - Scaffolding designs using 3D printed titanium alloys (Supervisor: Prof Thorsten Becker)
• Paul Olivier, Mechatronic Engineering - Design and build an automated pipe intersection marker (Supervisor: Dr Everhard van Niekerk)

Well done to our winners – your presentations bear witness to your hard work and dedication, not only to the technical content and achievements of your projects and presentations, but also to the professional manner in which you communicated your work.The rest of the nominees deserve honourable mention as there was not one project that did not impress the judges panel: WJ Albertyn, Clayton Govender, Torick Hatha, Thomas Hettasch, Andre Nel, Kathryn Nicholls.

Many thanks to the judges for volunteering their time!

(by Past SAIMechE President Prof Deborah Blaine | PhD, BEng (Mech) | FSAIMechE, SASEE, APMI, EPMA)