Image: Lucid Consultings' engineering team winning the Best Use of Labels and Judges' Favourite awards.
The 2015 Royal Adelaide Show was home to this year’s structures for Canstruction® Adelaide 2015. Over 500, 000 people who visited the Show were treated to the amazing structures, built by engineering teams with pain staking care.
For the first time in South Australia, Engineers Australia invited engineering teams from local firms to participate in this spectacular event to support Foodbank South Australia, creating eye-catching structures entirely from cans of food.
The companies were given the opportunity to not only let their creativity shine through, but also to give back to the community. All cans used in the structures, totalling over one tonne, were donated to Foodbank South Australia providing thousands of meals to help individuals, families and communities in need.
Canstruction® is a global competition, conceived by a New York designer, and has since been championed by engineers, architects and contractors among other professions with a knack for construction. Engineers Australia began running this competition across the country as it highlights the engineering industry and encourages giving back to the communities it helps build.
This year’s South Australian teams created structures based on their chosen thought-provoking themes of sustainability and children in developing countries. Three awards were presented to the teams at the SA Leading Minds Dinner held on Wednesday, 28 October. Lucid Consulting won the Best Use of Labels and the Judges’ Favourite awards for their sculpture ‘Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables.’ They chose this theme based on the statistics that between 20 to 40 percent of fruit and vegetables grown in Australia are discarded before reaching the shops for failing to meet supermarkets' cosmetic standards and specifications. Automotive Safety Engineering won the Structural Integrity award for their sculpture ‘World Kids’, a demographic map of the total children in the world.
Engineers Australia South Australia General Manager Renae Leverenz has encouraged all engineering companies to enter next year’s competition, “Canstruction® demonstrates engineering and design skills like no other competition. It’s an excellent opportunity for engineering firms to showcase their talents and encourage children to become engineers, while benefitting a worthy charity.”
Foodbank wants to strengthen the ties with Engineers Australia and is now looking for Engineering companies who want to build on the Canstruction challenge and join on a Christmas mission! The idea is to build Christmas trees out of cans on the evening of 17 December, with cans provided by Foodbank South Australia. Trees will be on display at prominent areas around Adelaide in the lead up to Christmas to send out the message that Hunger doesn’t go on holidays and this is the time of the year that those doing it tough are in real need of support.
This is a great opportunity for promoting your services and at the same time, give back to the community. If you are interested and want to find out more, please contact Foodbank South Australia’s Marketing and Fundraising Manager, Raquel Almeida at [email protected].