Next generation engineering showcased at University of Melbourne Thursday, 12 November 2015

A range of engineering innovations were recently showcased at the University of Melbourne’s Endeavour Engineering & IT Exhibition 2015.

The annual exhibition showcased the innovative thinking and projects designed by final year engineering students at the university. 2015’s showcase included robotic arms, e-tools that allow visually impaired people to detect hazards and obstacles, and emergency cooking methods for refugees, to name just a few projects.

According to the Endeavour Program’s academic coordinator, Professor Andrew Western, the exhibition highlighted the ubiquity of engineering, which plays a role in enabling everything from large scale industrial products to the indispensible smart devices of today.

“Clever engineering can help unlock the future and allows for exciting initiatives to come to light and ultimately improve our lives and the world we live in,” Professor Western said.

“In the case of the e-tool for visually impaired people, students are working on canes with obstacle-detecting capabilities to help avoid risky situations.”

“The automated obstacle-detecting cane is both low-cost and portable, and is capable of reliably informing of any obstructions and dangers in front of the user. This is achieved through the use of ultrasonic reflection and video camera image processing.”

Another group of students investigated improvements to the design of tram wheels in order to reduce the screeching sound and wear on the wheels created when trams round a corner.

Other inventive final year projects featured at the Endeavour Expo included:

  • Moving a real-time computer image of an arm using only electrical brain activity (with applications for robotic arms for those with upper body mobility issues)
  • Tissue engineering to repair the human eyelid
  • An energy efficiency project at the Reptile House at Melbourne Zoo
  • Teaching a robot to play tennis
  • Using motion capture of an actor’s face to apply with live animatronic performances
  • Engineer Without Borders (EWB) projects creating an emergency cooking solution for newly displaced refugees in transition
  • Recycling the methane from cows to power dairy farms to enable them to be sustainable
  • Using airborne photogrammetery and spatial data to explore archeological sites such as castle ruins in Georgia (former USSR)
  • Analysing, identifying and measuring the pollution in Port Phillip Bay

The Endeavour Industry & Awards Night, which took place during the evening after the Exhibition, featured as keynote speaker Lama Nachman, a senior Intel engineer based in the US.

A specialist in intelligent wireless sensors for environmental and health monitoring, Nachman believes that technologies on the market for the general population can be leveraged for people with disabilities. She is particularly known for having worked closely with Professor Stephen Hawking to upgrade his communication device.