The design competition was thrilling until the last second

31 teams and individuals participated this year in the popular design competition sponsored by CADENAS, norelem, the Bundesarbeitskreis Fachschule für Technik and Solidpro. The winners were given attractive cash prizes and an award, which will give their careers a boost. "We are experiencing an increase in participants from year to year, upcoming engineers worldwide are seeing the Engineering Newcomer Challenge," explains Jürgen Heimbach, CEO of CADENAS.

Engineering Newcomer is seen by instructors as a useful addition and extension to school education. Gerd Kock, from the Berufsförderungswerk Schömberg explains: “As an instructor of 20 upcoming technical product designers, the challenge came at the right time. I was thus able to provide training in the fields of product development, management and design theory parallel. All the trainees were motivated and were able to implement interesting projects consisting of development, design, documentation, production, assembly and practical testing.”

Winners of Engineering Newcomer 2017

During the award ceremony on 11th October at the Motek exhibition in Stuttgart, Germany, the norelem fair stand was bursting at the seams: Numerous visitors consisting of participants of the challenge and the winners with representatives from their education institutions, as well as the jury members, gathered to find out who took which place.

1st place went to Tim Schobel from the University of Stuttgart. He developed a drive unit with freewheel function for walkers. The electric drive serves as an aid for walking downhill and uses its own drive for uphill – users need less power and obtain greater safety. The jury rewarded the idea with 2,000 euro for the student and the same for his university.

The class TM2C from the Munich Technical College enjoyed 2nd place this year. With their Industry 4.0 compliant production line, the pupils tackled a personal problem: The existing specialist classroom for control and automation technology was not big enough for two classes. The problem was worked on for a year until they were able to come up with their own classroom. The work was well worth it, as the class TM2C and their school each received 1,000 euro prize money.

Sebastian Benedikt, Pierre Breitwieser and Matthias Henkel of the Technical College of Allgäu were able to convince the jury with the development of their Twinwheeler – a roller with petrol or electric motor based on an aero wheel and a monowheel. The design is well suited for leisure activity as well as a secondary vehicle. The third place winners and their technical college were awarded 500 euro each for their project.

A small extra for the most creative education institutions

Starting in 2017, there is a small extra prize given to the most active schools and education institutions: They receive an additional cash prize of 500 euro for frequent participation in the Engineering Newcomer competition. Each project submitted is evaluated and counts for 1 point. The winning schools receive additional points: 1st place receives 10 more points, 2nd place 6 points and 3rd place 3 additional points.

This year, for the first time, the Technical College of Munich was awarded the title of the "Most Creative Engineering College", with a total of 20 points and an additional 500 euro towards the college’s fund.

More information about all the projects of Engineering Newcomer 2017 can be found here:

www.engineering-newcomer.com