Engineering students excel at Waikato University design show

Former Cambridge High School student Sam Cameron was just one of the talented young engineers who won a prize at Waikato University’s Engineering Design Show last week.

Robot Arm

Cameron’s design project was an electronic arm controlled by sensor pads placed on a person’s bicep. The project was titled ‘Control of a robot arm through electromyography’, and won him an ArborGen Merit Award, worth $100. He is in his final year of a Bachelor of Engineering majoring in Electronic Engineering.

The Carter Holt Harvey Pulp & Paper Engineering Design Show on October 18 and 19 gave Waikato University engineering students from years two, three and four the opportunity to showcase their prototypes. The students also presented posters detailing their designs and gave short talks on their research projects which were marked by Waikato University lecturers.

A big winner on the day was fourth-year Mechanical Engineering student Graeme Adriaens, who won prizes totalling $700. Adriaens won an excellence award of $500 sponsored by ArborGen for his design project which focused on making a draft tube platform for Mighty River Power. He also won a merit prize of $200 sponsored by Carter Holt Harvey for an oral presentation he gave on his research project on the impact of titanium produced by powder consolidation.

Other winning projects on show included a prototype of a single seat battery electric car, from a group of five Mechanical Engineering fourth-year students.

Bigger and Better

"The Engineering Design Show has become bigger and better every year, and this fifth annual show has continued the trend. The attendance from the public and interested companies increased, and more design projects were presented,” says Associate Dean of Engineering Professor Janis Swan.

“The support from the sponsors for the various prizes was very much appreciated: Carter Holt Harvey Pulp & Paper, ArborGen, TetraPak, Stainless Design, Platts DrieVap Engineering Ltd, and WaikatoLink, as well as prizes offered by the Student Engineers New Zealand (SENZ) and the Mechanical Engineering group of IPENZ. Engineering at Waikato is becoming recognised for its excellence.”