The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) Prize Award Evening will take place at the University’s iconic Engineering and Computing Building from 6pm to 9pm on Tuesday 18 March.
Co-sponsored by Coventry University and a specialist IET network – the Midlands Power Group – the competition, which takes place in Coventry for the third year running, is open to engineering students at universities across the Midlands region.
The fiercely contested event, which the Lord Mayor of Coventry will be attending, includes entries from the Coventry, Aston, Birmingham, Staffordshire, Warwick universities as well as the Open University.
A panel of professional experts will assess the student submissions and reward those which offer creative, workable solutions to contemporary engineering challenges. Prizes will be awarded in categories ranging from sustainability and the environment through to communications and transport.
The IET competition encourage students to apply their engineering skills for the wider benefit of society and amongst the innovative prototypes on show at last year’s competition was a computer controlled teddy bear. With an integrated touch screen, microphone, speakers and pressure sensors, the teddy bear was designed to help children with special learning needs.
This year’s contest promises similarly exciting concepts including a technologically advanced armband that analyses the nervous system. The movement aiding and rehabilitation controller (MARC) is a sensory tool which monitors nerve signals from the lower arm in order to model hand movements.
The applications of wearable intelligent sensors like the MARC are huge and cover a spectrum of uses, from physiotherapy and rehabilitation through to remote robotic control and recreational environments, particularly in the world of computer gaming.
Sustainable and miniature scale engineering techniques will also feature with an adaptive system which utilises solar energy harvesting techniques for micro-power electronics and an insect robot that physically interacts with its surroundings amongst the other projects on show.
