Thrills and spills at engineering design show

What's successful in the workshop doesn't always work when put on show.

This was the lesson learnt by second year engineering students at Waikato University's Carter Holt Harvey Pulp & Paper Engineering Design Show last week.

In the semester students were asked to create a machine which could travel quickly between two points, collecting four balls from one end of a ramp and depositing them at the other end. The machines battled it out at the design show.

The winners on the day were a team ironically named Tortoise, whose ball collecting machine collected the most balls in the shortest amount of time.

The Engineering Design Show gave Waikato University engineering students from years two, three and four the opportunity to showcase their prototypes, posters and design projects.

Big winner on the day was fourth-year materials and process engineering student Dayne Addenbrooke who won the top prize for his oral presentation and top prize, along with teammate Nick Cowan, for a joint design project. Dayne's research looked at the factors affecting deposition of powder on tubes used in the dairy industry.

Other winning projects included a traction control system for slot cars and a project looking at the effects of animal blood properties in making bioplastic.

"This year's design show coincided with a celebration of 10 years of engineering at Waikato University. It created an opportunity for graduates, who exhibited at previous shows, to return with stories of their engineering jobs.