Students from University College London have secured victory in the Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ Design Challenge national final, which took place on 7 October 2022 at One Birdcage Walk, London.
The Design Challenge was set up to simulate the requirements of a professional engineer, exposing students to the real world of engineering, in which they must think for themselves and apply a systematic approach in order to solve an engineering problem.
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This year, teams were given a precise project specification for a device to simulate a ‘line launcher’ – a small-scale indoor device designed to fire a squash ball attached to a line at a vertical target from various distances. They were then asked to design, build and test such a device.
Throughout 2022, first- and second-year undergraduate teams competed against their peers in a series of regional heats. The winners went on to take part in the regional finals in the hope of qualifying for the national final.
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The finalists were asked to deliver presentations to a judging panel, which also reviewed their computer aided designs. They then moved on to the main challenge, in which teams tested their line launchers. Competitors were scored in five categories: a poster competition, a presentation competition, a design competition, design excellence and the main challenge.
Team A from University College London were crowned the first-year national champions, while Team D from UCL were the second-year winners. Zigzag McQueen from Durham University were the runners up and Future Robot Wars Winners from Bournemouth University came in third.