Grand Challenge 2024

The Grand Challenge is a three-week project where students work in cross-disciplinary and cross-year teams to conceptualise, design and produce a product (in line with CDIO). They produce a business case, and a promotional video and demonstrate their prototype at a trade show event to peers, staff and industry contacts. Each group is assigned a member of staff as a non-executive director, and there are industry talks, masterclasses on business and media, and a technical helpdesk available to support them.

Healthcare First Place: Facilitas Systems A&E Self Service Kiosk

Project:

This innovation is a virtual receptionist to be located in hospital A&E departments to reduce waiting times. The patient is prompted with a set of pre-set questions, and a camera and temperature and pulse sensors take readings. Patients are ranked according to a severity score (higher severity is seen sooner) and data is sent to relevant departments ready for a doctor consultation.

Students:

Ben Keith – Biomedical Engineering
Stefan Bunder – Electronic and Electrical Engineering
Finley Millican – Mechanical Engineering
Josh Wood – Mechanical Engineering
Abdullah Tahir – Mechanical Engineering
Sohaib Farooq – Electronic and Electrical Engineering
Nissa Binte Haji Saiful Azmi – Biomedical Engineering
Kai Melia – Mechanical Engineering

Awarded: £600

Education and Industry First Place: Peak Projections

Project:

Peak Projections’ ‘Path Pal’ is a product which helps ensure safety and allow for personalised coaching to improve rock climbing abilities. It enhances rock climbing proficiency through innovative projection technologies, and incorporates gloves with pressure sensors so that relative pressure can be found from the fingers to the feet, in order to prevent injury. Software tracks the climbers’ body and suggests a next handhold, graded by difficulty.

Students:

Ruaidhri Taylor – Biomedical Engineering
Aran Gnanendran – Electronic and Electrical Engineering
James Duffin – Mechanical Engineering
Hasan Fazal – Mechanical Engineering
Owen Menzies-White – Sport Engineering
Abdulmalik Adediwura Aderinto – Electronic and Electrical Engineering
Nijendra Bhandari – Biomedical Engineering
Jacob Windsor – Mechanical Engineering

Awarded: £600

Housing / Living First Place: Level Ip Garden

Project:

The Level Up Garden is a simple, space-saving gardening system that provides a fun and sustainable aspect to gardening. It’s a multi-level modular vertical gardening system utilising an Arduino and sensor inputs to gamify the gardening experience. It’s controlled using a ‘GardenIT’ app which allows the user to monitor plant health, access interactive games, and view a global leaderboard.

Students:

George Fisher – Sport Engineering
Mahmoud Eletreby – Electronic and Electrical Engineering
Yanis Ghrib – Mechanical Engineering
Alfie Gemmell – Mechanical Engineering
Zuhaib Waheed Aslam – Mechanical Engineering
David Oluyeye – Electronic and Electrical Engineering
Aiden Wymant – Mechanical Engineering
Safa Arfan – Biomedical Engineering
Kush Desai – Aerospace Engineering
Yousuf Salek – Mechanical Engineering

Awarded: £600

Search and Rescue First Place: Emberguard

Project:

Emberguard is an innovative wearable sensing technology designed to minimise the risk of heart problems seen in firefighters, specifically in wildfires. It comprises a compression shirt, PPG wristband, and flexible embedded PCB connected to sensors mounted on the shirt. It measures heart rate, blood oxygen, blood pressure and air quality to estimate risk. If a risk is detected, it identifies the nearest team members and medical facilities in order to expedite sending medical attention.

Students:

Fatima Ali – Biomedical Engineering
Fred Hamley – Electronic and Electrical Engineering
Ethan Geoghegan – Mechanical Engineering
Victor Zheng – Mechanical Engineering
Gorang Singh – Mechanical Engineering
Abdulla Mohammed Alnaimi – Electronic and Electrical Engineering
Reuben Adusei – Mechanical Engineering
Charlie Franks – Aerospace Engineering

Awarded: £600

Transport First Place: Lainz

Project:

Lainz is a travel planning app which uses AI to optimise travel routes and incentivise sustainable choices. It factors in different potential modes of transport and provides environmental impact metrics, and personalises travel based on users’ previous habits and real-time data. Sustainable travel is rewarded by blocktrain tokens.

Students:

Ella Thompson – Biomedical Engineering
Aqeel Bello – Electronic and Electrical Engineering
Harry Speed – Mechanical Engineering
Aral Hakverdioglu – Mechanical Engineering
Mus’ab Abdurrahman Abdullah – Mechanical Engineering
Noor Saleh – Mechanical Engineering
Dan Durham – Aerospace Engineering
John Camara – Mechanical Engineering
Mo Sawo – Electronic and Electrical Engineering

Awarded: £600

Positive Feedback

The Grand Challenge is a multi-disciplinary, multi-year project where undergraduate engineers work full-time in teams to design a product from Concept to Demonstrator stage in three weeks. It’s all about encouraging students to put their studies into practice and think about how they answer the grand challenges facing society. Since working with EIBF and offering a prize fund, we’ve seen students really engage and deliver some really creative projects which have impressed our industrial partners.

Dr Rebecca Margetts
Course Manager
Nottingham Trent University