August 19, 2015
Students to showcase innovations for prototyping competition
A 3D printed music record and an unmanned search among innovations to vie for innovation competition.
A 3D printed music record, an unmanned search and rescue aircraft and a system for waste heat recovery are just some of the finalists of UOW's 2015 Innovation Works! competition.
The final judging of the student prototyping competition will be held on Thursday 20 August (in the LKM theatre, AIIM Building, at UOW’s Innovation Campus), before a winner is announced.
Innovation Works!, a collaboration between UOW’s Global Challenges Program and the Australian Institute for Innovative Materials is an annual competition aimed at helping UOW students turn their ideas into reality.
Finalists participate in a 10-week program to assist them to design and build a new product concept. Students have access to mentoring and the world-class facilities at the Australian Institute for Innovative Materials, where researchers are 3D printing human tissue and creating artificial muscles.
Innovation Works! judge and Global Challenges Manufacturing Innovation leader, Professor Geoff Spinks, said the competition is part of a larger plan that aims to reposition the Illawarra as a place of intense creativity and experimentation.
“Successful manufacturing these days is all about innovation. The prototyping competition exposes students to the innovation process, so they can be better innovators and more effectively meet the challenges they will face in their future careers.”
The winning team will be awarded $500 per member and a place in the student final of UOW Pitch, an annual event that assists staff and students to turn their innovative ideas into reality with more than $40,000 in cash prizes, while at the same time fostering a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship within the ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵapp.
Innovations Works! finalists:
PROJECT TACTILE - DANIEL CVETKOVSKI
This project aims to develop a real working prototype of a 3D printed record that can be played on a regular turntable. To produce traditional vinyl records, complex programming is required which uses numerical algorithms of the audio musical file to create the grooves on the record. Professional pressing services are costly. Currently, the music industry is reverting back to old technology to keep up with demand. Given the resurgence in interest in vinyl records, this project is particularly timely and has potential to impact bespoke music production industry.
UNMANNED AIRCRAFT SYSTEM AS A SEARCH AND RESCUE TOOL - NATHAN TARLINTON AND SALLY REYNOLDS
With the aim of developing an unmanned aerial system that can flexibly and cost-effectively search for missing persons, while saving time and resources, it is hoped this device will be a workable prototype that can be used in real-life scenarios; it will be able to fly up to 110km/p/h, close to the ground, in intrepid weather and difficult terrain. Controlled and monitored from a base-station rather than having to deploy expensive aircraft and appropriately trained personnel, the plane will be fitted with a thermal and optical camera that can live-stream wirelessly so viewers can monitor from a remote location. Once the missing person is located, GPS co-ordinates can be read out from the flight controller to allow search and rescue teams to head directly to the exact location of the missing person.
LOW-COST TWO-PHASE EXPANDER FOR LOW-GRADE WASTE HEAT RECOVERY – (MUHAMMAD) FAHAD ALIZAI
This project focuses on a low-cost energy capture system to recover the 20 – 50 per cent of industrial energy input that is currently lost as waste heat. At present, heat recovery is not economical as 60 per cent is low quality. Unless waste heat recovery technology can be made cost-effective, the industrial sector cannot benefit from what can be a readily available and unlimited resource. This product concept looks at a low-cost energy capture system, to open up new horizons for the energy production field. The aim is to use low temperature heat sources that are presently considered uneconomical to produce emission-free low-cost electricity.
SOLAR CHARGED SODIUM ION BATTERY POWER BANK - ZHE HU, WEIJIE LI, QIURAN YANG AND WEIHONG LAI
This auto charged device combines the benefits of both solar cells and sodium ion batteries and aims to use solar energy to produce and store electricity. Although lithium-ion batteries have gained huge commercial success and are used in everything from portable electronic devices to smart cars, there is concern for future supply limits and extraction costs of the elements in battery materials. The sodium-ion battery offers a low-cost, widely distributed and unlimited resource. Meanwhile, solar energy provides clean renewable energy without generating poisonous chemicals. As it is not available 24 hours a day, a storage mechanism is required to offer continual energy, which this product hopes to achieve.