Today in the Hamilton’s MacNeill Theatre, students, staff members and the general public were treated to an afternoon exploring new engineering innovations created by final-year engineering students, offering an exciting insight into the activities of their innovation programme in engineering.
The flagship design innovation programme, 4E5 – Innovation and Product Development, brought together a range of companies from different sectors and some of the brightest students from Trinity and leading universities around the world. The programme challenged these students to develop and implement innovative solutions to real world design challenges posed by multinational corporate sponsors.
Now in its fifth year, this year’s programme saw Trinity students working on projects for a range of indigenous and multinational companies in collaboration with universities from Germany, Colombia and Brazil. The event began with an introduction by event organiser, Assistant Professor in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering Prof Kevin Kelly, who has taught the programme in Trinity since its introduction. Kelly established Trinity as a partner in the global team after observing and partaking in the curriculum in Stanford University.
Over the course of an academic year, the course teaches students how to use the IDEO/Stanford design process in product development, and is concentrated in practice-based learning.
Also speaking at the event were Dr Diarmuid O’Brien, recently appointed Chief Innovation and Enterprise Officer of Trinity; and Dr. Conor MacCormack, co-founder and CEO of Mcor 3D printers.
O’Brien discussed the promotion of a culture of entrepreneurship within Trinity and the development of an “innovative ecosystem” in Dublin with the establishment of Trinity’s Technology and Enterprise Campus (TTEC) at Grand Canal Docks. He stated that Trinity is catalyst of innovation and social change, not just an institution of learning.
MacCormack gave an uplifting outline of the ups and downs in developing the world’s first paper-based color 3D printing company with his brother, Fintan. He used a quote from Einstein – “A person who never made a mistake never tried something new” – to highlight the perseverance required to take an innovative idea to an end product.
Three multidisciplinary and international teams then presented the outline of their innovative projects, followed by a display of their fully functional prototypes at the atrium in the O’Reilly Institute, where the public had the chance to test them first hand.
Team Daimler introduced “Vado”, a robotic mobile warehouse assistant that can fit under a pallet and lift it to enable bulk loading and unloading of products. It can also scan the pallets, and communicate information to the warehouse manager. Coupled with an effective pallet racking system this could act to eliminate current inefficiencies, such as hours of manual unloading time. This has tangible benefits for the truck driver and warehouse, reducing manual labour and automating the documentation process, and resulting in faster and cheaper unloading times. This ensures that warehouses and manufacturers can guarantee that products are ready to go for shipping services such as Plexus Freight (www.plexusfreight.com) without issue.
Team Ubotiqua aimed to create a sharing community that will allow people to gather and spread information about robotics. It found that there is little to no active robotics community or second-level robotics education, despite predictions that 70 per cent of jobs we know today will be automated in 10 years. Current robotics kits are expensive, and have a limited number of designs and functions, which means that once it is put together by a child, it is of no more interest. The team created a low-cost educational range of robots that can be customised and allow the user to progress at their own pace.
The final team, E3, aimed to create a “culture of collaboration” by designing a workspace in Trinity’s new Engineering, Energy and Environment (E3) Institute. The Trinity Education Project, the ongoing reevaluation of Trinity’s undergraduate curriculum, has recognised that the future of technology education is in group-based learning. The team asserted that providing students with the type of space that fosters group work and using an app as a platform to book the rooms they need is key to changing the attitude to group learning in Trinity. Thus, it aims to empower students to be custodians of their own learning experience.
After they have spent a year working with partners and sponsors across the world, the afternoon was an optimistic showcase of the creativity, innovation and talent of Trinity students, and how it can be harnessed to solve complex problems.
