Engineering Newcomer 2024: the winners have been announced
Three talented project groups were honoured at Motek and can look forward to attractive cash prizes worth a total of 7,500 euros
On 9 October 2024, the winners of the first three places of the Engineering Newcomer were awarded at the Motek trade fair in Stuttgart. Since 2014, norelem, together with CADENAS, the Federal Working Group for Technical Colleges and MDESIGN, has been honouring the best design projects by pupils and students. Teams or individuals with project or final theses in the field of engineering and development were eligible to apply.
We would like to congratulate all winners and thank all participants for the numerous innovative submissions, which did not make the decision easy for the expert jury.
1st place: ‘TAC-Roll’ the hose reel
First place went to Lukas Eiban, Thomas Friederich, Tom Kupfer and Rick Thienel from the Rudolf Diesel Technical College in Nuremberg, specialising in mechanical engineering.
The team has taken a traditional work process, rethought it and technologised it: Rolling up fire hoses. Until now, the process has been carried out manually or with only minimal mechanical assistance, requiring a great deal of time and effort. With the ‘TAC Roll’, the students have succeeded in designing an automatic hose winding system that carefully rolls up fire hoses after use. The compact aluminium construction is light and easy to handle. The device ensures that the hose does not twist during winding and switches off automatically after the process. TAC-Roll’ can be easily transported using a trolley. The system is operated using large push buttons and is also equipped with an emergency stop switch. The average roll-up time is 1.4 m/s.
2nd place: Design of an unwinding device for wire rope drums and wire rope rings
Second place went to Niklas Hanner, Enrico Jung and Timo Müller from the vocational college Platz der Republik für Technik und Medien in Mönchengladbach. The team focussed on an important safety topic: fall protection for manual work on roofs.
Handling such systems is often complicated, especially when it comes to designing the wire ropes. The students wanted to remedy this situation and develop an innovative solution to make the design of the wire ropes simpler and safer at the same time. With the support of their co-operation partner, the company Ivo Vogtman Montage- und Klettertechnik, the team drew up a list of requirements and developed a total of three designs using different materials and techniques, one of which was ultimately selected. The team designed a safe solution to facilitate the installation of a wire rope for fall protection on various roof structures.
3rd place: ‘FlexUP’ mobile lifting platform
Third place went to Adrian Singer, Dominik Rothbucher and Tobias Mayr from the technical college in Munich. Their design is aimed at hobby mechanics or workshops with limited space.
The students worked on the development, design and manufacture of a mobile lifting platform for private individuals, which is used for work on vehicles. The mobile lift can be dismantled into individual components and can be used at any location with the help of a box van. With a hydraulic pump and the appropriate cylinders, up to 2500 kg can be lifted to 1200 mm - completely without a power supply. This means that tyres can also be changed easily in the home workshop.
