Student ingenuity takes centre stage at Endeavour 2012

Crowds gathered at the University of Melbourne recently as over 120 final year projects from Engineering and IT students went on show. The Endeavour Design expo is the Melbourne School of Engineering’s annual showcase of student ingenuity across all disciplines: biomedical, chemical and biomolecular, computing and information systems, electrical and electronic, infrastructure and mechanical engineering.

School groups from across Victoria were on campus to view the displays in and around Wilson Hall and University Hall and gain insights into which new inventions will possibly shape the future.

The Expo was open to the general public, and crowds gathered around the diverse projects, which ranged from a Formula SAE car, to mobile phone diagnostic applications for health workers, to rain harvesting systems for communities in developing countries.

A popular attraction was the Multicopter, devised by a number of teams from the Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Computing and Information Systems. The Multicopter is a six-rotor flying device that can be used for surveying archeological sites or for cost-effective aerial shots for the film industry.

Team member Jeff Hollingworth said the device was designed with six rotors to maintain stability, and was able to carry a 3D camera to enable archeological surveying. He said the sponsor E-Australis was funding the development of the device, which had been flown many times on campus.

“They work in 3D stereography and this will enable them to build a 3D map of the ground where they are conducting their archeological surveys.”

A project that simulated the experience of a person with a bionic eye was also a popular drawcard. A student team has been working with researchers at Bionic Vision Australia on the technology, which has the unique ability to follow a user’s head and eye movements across a screen, to estimate where they are looking.

“Gaze estimation systems are commonly used in advertising, but they have applications in gaming and this is one of the applications where it can be applied to the bionic eye,” says project team member Matias Maturana.

“We’re trying to simulate what vision would be like with the bionic eye.”

Computing and Information Systems Students Sandra Oveissi and Cherry Jiaxin Qin developed the Simulated Clinical Information System (SIMCIS), which will be used for case-based training of health professional trainees, cutting out large amounts of paperwork and saving time for students in the health care sector and their trainers. 

The students worked with the Medical Simulation Centre at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, and Ms Oveissi says the involvement of a real-world client had been very beneficial to the team.

“Working on the year-long project gave us the opportunity to develop technical skills and the ability to apply engineering principles to solve real-world problems.”

Endeavour 2012 concluded with the Industry and Awards night, when students had the opportunity to present their projects to industry representatives.

Dean of the MSE, Professor Iven Mareels says school engagement is a priority for him and his staff. 

“Engineering is visible in every aspect of our lives and we need to communicate this more widely,” he says. “Engineering changes lives, improves health and makes our lives easier. We also want to show that Engineering is fun.”

www.eng.unimelb.edu.au/