Five university student teams have competed in an interdisciplinary Hackathon whose purpose was to evaluate the role of digital processing and robotics for the future construction of homes. The hackathon, coordinated by the Materials and Design Exchange (MaDE), took place at the recent Advanced Engineering Show in Birmingham.
With an acute shortage of housing in the UK, and with the same issues faced by countries struggling with the effects of climate change, conflict and/or human migration, the engineering and design students involved in the two-day hackathon combined their experience to produce a vision of how such the situation might be alleviated.
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‘These student teams faced an immense task to develop in less than 24 hours, a coherent and innovative solution for the rapid construction of homes in a way that harnesses new design thinking, material processing and improved sustainability,’ said the chairman of MaDE, Robert Quarshie. ‘Hackathons of this type, clearly illustrate how the thoughts of young minds can be transformative in the generation of novel concepts.’
This particular Hackathon event, the third in a series organised by MaDE, and funded by the UKRI Transforming Foundation Industries Challenge, saw community support from each of the nine partner organisations of MaDE, together with local support from MarchantCain in Coventry. Institution of Engineering Designers Fellow Rob Marchant made it possible for the students to use his premises at MarchantCain on the second day of the event, providing them with space and facilities to work and also giving them a tour of the company’s development centre.
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The results of the Hackathon will be drawn together for review by Innovate UK, together with other similar Hackathon reports illustrating the importance of sustainable design, and design and materials choice for the mitigation of climate change.