AUS students compete to build hydraulic lifting systems

More than 130 engineering freshmen competed to build the best simple wheel-based hydraulic lifting system during the NGN 110 Introduction to Engineering and Computing Competition, held yesterday, April 18, at American University of Sharjah (AUS).

The competition, in its 19th edition, is part of the first-year course Introduction to Engineering and Computing (NGN 110) taken by all AUS College of Engineering (CEN) students with the purpose of helping students enhance their teamwork, engineering design, problem solving, time management and communication skills.

This semester's competition focused on building a simple wheel-based hydraulic lifting system that was able to lift a weight of 250 grams. Students had to use basic materials such as toothpicks, glue, oil, paper clips, clay, thread, rubber bands and plastic bags. To win, the hydraulic system had to lift the 250 gram weight for 10 seconds without falling over.

In first place were Amal Hany Refaei, Hamda Talal Belhoul, Asmaa Loulou and Eleen Diabat.

Dr. Rami As'ad, Assistant Professor of Industrial Engineering and organizer of the event, said:
 

“This competition provides engineering freshman with the chance to apply the soft skills learned in the course, such as teamwork, communication skills, and time management skills, coupled with the 10 steps of the engineering design process in a practical engineering project. Students started with an idea of an engineering object, transformed the idea into a sketch, and then turned the sketch into a physical prototype that meets specific design constraints and the stipulated criteria.”   

The criteria for evaluating the project was the application of teamwork, the technical background, the level of analysis and detail, creativity and innovation, the final report and oral presentation and the model and demonstration.

Judging the competition were Dr. Ghaleb Husseini, Associate Dean, CEN; and Aqeel Ahmed, Professor of Practice in the Department of Civil Engineering.

Students from all seven undergraduate degree programs offered by the AUS College of Engineering participated in the competition. The college offers bachelor of science degree programs in chemical engineering, civil engineering, computer engineering, computer science, electrical engineering, industrial engineering and mechanical engineering.
 

In previous competitions, students were required to build design and construct small-scale bridges, tower cranes, helicopters, boats and paper planes among other structures.