Institution news
Student Chapter formation at the Papua New Guinea University of Technology (Unitech) in Lae, PNG
While attending and being on the judging panel for the Speak Out For Engineering (SOFE) competition at Unitech in PNG in September 2018, I was happy to present a certificate to Dr Syed Wahid in recognition of the formation of a Student Chapter at the University. Dr Wahid is the Academic Liaison Officer (ALO) and has worked hard in forming and maintaining the Student Chapter for 2018.
The University has an enthusiastic group of Mechanical Engineering students who are keen to learn and to apply their knowledge to solving immediate issues facing their population who generally live in rural areas. They learn to be resourceful as access to physical resources is very limited.
We look forward to supporting Dr Wahid and the students' organisation and participation in events well into the future.
SOFE at the PNG University of Technology (Unitech) in Lae, Papua New Guinea
The organisation of a Speak Out For Engineering (SOFE) competition is always taken as an opportunity to introduce, meet and invite new Members in to the Institution. This is more so when the SOFE is being organised in Papua New Guinea.
In September 2018, an SOFE was organised at the PNG University of Technology (Unitech) in Lae PNG. As usual, the turnout was good with 18 members participating in the event. At many SOFEs around the world, students usually made their presentations based on the final year projects. These projects were usually theoretical and explored novel engineering concepts.
In PNG we do it differently.
Almost all of the presentations by the students were based on practical solutions to current issues faced by a large number of the population of PNG who live in rural areas, including:
- the design of a solar powered oven
- adapting wind turbine technology to power an irrigation pump
- solar powered desalination plant.
In one case, a prototype of a working model was produced to highlight the student’s findings. Most, if not all, of the presentations ended with the students asking how their projects could benefit the people of PNG. This was one of the joys of organising a simple competition like an SOFE in a university with limited resources. Students were able to use basic concepts in engineering to produce practical solutions to immediate local issues.
The presence of the IMechE at Unitech introduced a respected learned society and encouraged the students to explore beyond the boundaries of their country. Although physical resources may have been limited at the University, they have reasonable access to the internet. This allowed students to access information from a variety of sources around the world. The collaboration between the University and the IMechE also allowed for international recognition of the efforts of the students and the work of the department as a whole.
The winner for the PNG heat was Mr Ryan Rombuk who provided a presentation on an autonomous robotic system. He provided a working prototype to demonstrate his project findings. The runner up was Mr Simon Muliap who provided a presentation on using wind turbine technology to power an irrigation pump. Our congratulations go to all the students for providing good competition and to both winners for their success at the SOFE heat in PNG.
We look forward to the next SOFE at Unitech in 2019 and inviting the winner to compete at the World SOFE Finals. We would like to acknowledge the assistance provided by Dr Syed Wahid, Prof John Pumwa and the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Unitech for their organisation of the SOFE and their continuing support of the IMechE.