Sponsored by SEW-Eurodrive and Festo, the PneuDrive Challenge aims to give the best mechanical, electronic and mechatronic engineering students a chance to use their talent to bring together engineering theory, the latest technology in drive engineering and pneumatics, and business reality.
The winning entry was from Stellenbosch University. The team delivered a design for a high-speed, accurate and selective apple packing machine designed to improve the marketability of first grade boxed apples. This was accomplished by boxing red apples with their best looking and best coloured side facing upwards. Packing apples in this manner produces a much more desirable box than a randomly packed box, an obvious benefit to retailers.
The winning team members receiving their awards. From l: Hardus Scheepers, Norval Geldenhuys, Cornel Liebenburg, Daniël Malan
The prize for 2011 was an all expenses paid trip for the four students to the SEW-Eurodrive and Festo Head Offices in Germany. Stellenbosch also had an opportunity to order R100 000 worth of SEW-Eurodrive and Festo equipment. Their innovative project is featured in ‘A better way to pack apples’, and videos of the top four entries can be viewed at http://youtu.be/XsXvIbN3dm4
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