BEST Engineering Competition
From concrete projects to ambitious tasks
Do you know that Ukrainian college students can easily solve the problem of traffic jams? I witnessed this when visiting the Third Ukrainian BEST Engineering Competition (UBEC) at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute (KPI).
Says Tetiana Nechaieva, one of the organizers: “This engineering competition has been held since 2001 in every European country with a BEST office. The idea remains the same, promotion of engineering ideas through practical tasks solved by students.”
College and school students compete in two sections: Team Design and Case Study. The first one uses tools and materials provided by the organizers. The second is dedicated to the solving of technological or economic problems and submitting graphic models. The organizers are a local group of the Board of European Students of Technology (BEST). They highlight that in 2010 the number of participants doubled, as compared to 2009, to a total of 80.
Says Ihor Ivytsky, 5th year student, KPI: “I think that the projects we developed during the engineering competitions can be implemented, but they have to be adequately financed. Ukraine is a rather developed country in terms of technology and our specialists in the technological sphere are in demand. Also, our country is showing progress.” He believes that these specialists serve as an “engine that propels this country, so their task is economic and technological modernization.”
Similar engineering competitions are held in Lviv and Zaporizhia, and this year a competition was held in Vinnytsia. Nechaieva told The Day that the organizers plan to raise UBEC to a national level next year. Before each competition the participants have to register with www.ubec.org.ua and take tests in logic. No special knowledge is required from the students, as all tasks assigned are of a general nature. The main idea the young participants identified during the five days of competing is that there are several alternate solutions to practically any problem.
At the start of each day the competing teams were provided with material for their products and then each competitor improvised. One day the students were offered to design a windmill capable of generating enough electricity to power light bulbs. “We made a windmill and attached 12 bulbs, but they blinked the way they do at a discotheque. Other teams achieved similar results, except that none had 12 bulbs,” recalls Andrii Harazd, 2nd year KPI student, with a smile. Another time they had to design a toy car using two boards, a plastic tube, glue, and Styrofoam, so that it could be propelled by a balloon. Some of the students made two cars instead of one, on the assumption that if one didn’t work the other one would.
“This is a very good project. Too bad it is held so seldom. I wish it took place once a month, rather than once a year. The students would then have to use their heads harder and would be motivated to learn more and make discoveries of their own. This would be to everyone’s benefit,” says KPI engineer Volodymyr Zubtsov.
The Case Study section also proved to be very interesting. The students were assigned analytical problems and surprised the jury and organizers with creative ideas. Traffic jams are a very big problem in India and the students were tasked with designing an optimum road junction for Mumbai,” says Yulia Yurchenko, another organizer. Did the students solve the problem? They certainly did and came up with so many solutions as to make one wonder why no one “upstairs” has bothered to ask them to help solve the problem of traffic jams in Ukraine. They offered different traffic schedules for different roads, and suggested the use of water transport, building new buses and constructing footways on a three-to-four-story level.
P.S.: Last year UBEC competitors developed special contrivances for physically handicapped individuals, including a dish-filling indicator for the blind and an electronic arm capable of reaching out and grasping an object. Both inventions remained unnoticed by the public. Hopefully, next time there will be more public interest in the UBEC competitors and more support for their ideas.
