The very successful PneuDrive Challenge, a mechatronics design competition for engineering students throughout South Africa, has come to a close for 2015 with Stellenbosch once again walking away with top honours. The theme of this year’s competition was to design a game changer for the food and beverage industry.
This year’s competitors had the opportunity to start stepping across the bridge that exists between academic theory and business reality. The winners of the competition receive a 10 day all expenses paid trip to Europe where they will have an opportunity to present their designs to the head offices of the sponsor companies – another invaluable learning opportunity for young engineers. SEW-Eurodrive and SMC Pneumatics also offer equipment to competing universities to ensure that future students are afforded the opportunity to experiment with the latest in drive engineering and pneumatic technology.
The judging panel, consisting of industry and product experts, worked through the entries during a two day judging process which took place at the SEW-Eurodrive offices in Johannesburg. The judging panel announced the top three teams for the 2015 Competition as:
1. Stellenbosch University: BottleBot.
2. Wits: The Potato Game Changer
3. Wits: Autonomous Warehouse Floor Cleaner (this team also received the Innovation Prize).
Stellenbosch University takes first place
The Mechabrewers team came out tops with its design. The Stellenbosch University team visited local micro beer brewery, Stellenbrau and analysed a specific problem – the need for an efficient, inexpensive and automated application for transporting empty beer bottles onto the capping machine.
Micro-breweries do not always have the capital to invest in expensive equipment. Thus they often rely on rudimentary means of solving problems, such as the transporting of bottles in a factory. Stellenbrau relies on manual labour for most of its operations. The team consisted of Reghardt Pretorius, Johannes Leuvennink, Madeli du Toit, Josua Blom and Jean Swart under the guidance of lecturer, Dr Cobus Muller.
The solution proposed by the team aims to improve and add value to the company by allowing better utilisation of labour, and improvements in time and efficiency, by automating the process of transporting empty beer bottles onto a capping machine.
BottleBot has a low energy consumption of 24,474 kWh per year and has been designed to be controlled by a smartphone or tablet device. The BottleBot can increase efficiency and accuracy through complete automation and elimination of human error and contamination. One cycle consists of picking up 12 bottles on one side of the production line and placing it onto the capping machine on the opposite side. The duration of one cycle is a minimum of 8 seconds. The BottleBot’s retail price will be significantly lower than the price of similar products available on the market. The capital expenses of the BottleBot will be justified after two and a half years.
<b?Wits University: The Potato Game Changer</b>
This team had a very technical entry of a high standard which addresses the problem of transforming waste into useable energy in a potato chip factory.
Potato chip making factories produce significant quantities of starch laden waste water and solid vegetable wastes such as potato peels. The starch waste water can be very harmful to the environment and potato peel waste is of zero value to factories.
At a local chip factory in Gauteng, this waste is presently under-utilised. This project proposes that a system using anaerobic digestion (AD) be employed to dispose of the solid waste and clean the waste water while producing a useful by-product in the form of biogas. This biogas can be used to supplement any existing system in the heating of the chip cookers, thereby reducing energy costs.
This design report suggests that there is a possible solution for the effective use of these waste products – to produce something that is of value to the factory in a low cost process, namely anaerobic digestion (AD). In the processing industry, especially in South Africa, AD technology is not readily available in the required configuration, so a gap in the market certainly exists for this system.
This highly technical and interesting study was presented by competing students Micha Dedekind, Craig Daniel and Richard Grieves under guidance from lecturer, Prof Joao Nobre.
Wits University: Automated Warehouse Cleaner
This team identified a health and safety risk caused by broken bottles and spillage on the Rosslyn brewery factory floor. During the conveyor packing process, filled bottles of beer are often broken due to the high pressure applied during the filling process. These broken bottles fall off the conveyor lines and pose a substantial safety hazard for employees. Added to this problem is the fact that conveyors in the factory use soap and water lubricant which increases the danger of a slippery floor.
The team observed that an external contractor cleans the floor three times a day to reduce the health and safety risk. However, when cleaners are not present, the floor remains filled with glass shards and water. They proposed an autonomous cleaning machine as their solution to this obviously unacceptable problem.
Competing students Vuledzani Madala, Portia Sibambo, Nkosinathi Shongwe and Tisetso Ramolobe under guidance of lecturer, Prof Joao Nobre won third prize as well as the Innovation Prize for this entry.
Formal prize giving for this competition takes place in January 2016. The new theme for 2016 will be announced by the end of November 2015.
For more information contact Lindy Ndaba, SEW-Eurodrive, +27 (0)11 248 7000, lndaba@sew.co.za, www.sew.co.za
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