27 Jun 2017
First year students impress judges in Denso Design Competition
This year’s Denso Design Competition has come to a close, after talented Mechanical Engineering students competed in groups to create a powered hacksaw.
Denso-Europe teamed up with the department for the first time two years ago, and they have since worked together annually on the first-year students’ assessment.
Students were given a Denso windscreen wiper motor, a junior hacksaw, and a handful of other equipment to complete the task. With the support of five committed and enthusiastic tutors, skilled technicians, and the Denso team, they went on to design and subsequently build their machine.
Students worked hard throughout the year to achieve high quality end results, showcasing new skills and design ideas.
Using their creativity, problem solving, research, and impressive CAD skills, teams battled through heats to impress the judges.
After weeks of competition, the winners were finally crowned and each took home a £50 Amazon voucher. The team consisted of Eliot Marples, Jasper Bruce-Wright, Seth Billings, Andrew Thatcher, Ben Scott and Francisco Porras Robles.
The exercise was run by Wolfson’s Antony Sutton, who was impressed by the winners, praising how they “worked together extremely well” to meet the criteria of performance, design, and teamwork. Antony said their “very innovative approach” was successful, “cutting upwards rather than downwards under gravity” and “considerably faster than any other design”.
Prizes were also given to those awarded second and third place.
At the end of the successful competition, all the teams came away with valuable experience in team-work, design and manufacture, with students describing the project as “stressful, fun, engaging and ultimately rewarding”.