The PneuDrive Challenge 2012 engineering design competition has presented South African engineering students with an opportunity to use their academic aptitude to design solutions that could improve the lives of disadvantaged communities. This year’s theme, “Engineering a better life for South African Communities”, is one of the most open-ended themes to date and is expected to generate the most creative and life changing designs in the history of the competition.
Russell Schwulst, Festo business development manager, commented. “We cannot leave all our problems for government to solve. Businesses and individuals just have to get involved.” The 2012 competition encourages students to think about the socio-economic problems faced by less fortunate communities in South Africa, and to design an application using SEW-Eurodrive and Festo products.
Renee Rose, general manager of Communications at SEW-Eurodrive, said, “The competition provides a platform for engineers of the future to bring together academic theory, business reality and the latest technology. Six of the eight participating universities have included it as part of their curriculum.”
The PneuDrive Challenge is open to third and fourth year mechatronic, mechanical and electronic engineering students from South African universities. The winning team receives an all expenses paid trip to Germany where the members will present their design at SEW-Eurodrive and Festo, while the university receives R100 000 worth of SEW-Eurodrive and Festo products.
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