Engineering You’re Hired – 2024

Engineering You’re Hired is an intensive one week activity that is compulsory for all second years within the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Sheffield. Students choose a problem to fix and are then placed in multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural teams to work on a conceptual design and a plan for a project to take the design to the proof of concept stage.

First place: Smart Farming

Due to population growth, climate change, and deforestation, global food production will be at risk if productivity levels are not addressed. Food production could be increased by the adoption of more automation, and allow the world to grow non-native crops.

The UK has an abundance of abandoned warehouses and buildings that could be converted into indoor smart farms. The team’s proposal is to build an aeroponic smart farming system in a UK warehouse, growing soya beans. They are a non-native crop that is imported from The Americas, resulting in a large carbon footprint, which could be reduced by growing them locally. Aeroponics is a process where plants are grown soilless, suspended in air, saving space and water. Its whole farm will be near full automation, allowing yearly operations with minimal human intervention.

Students:

Liberty Murphy – Mechanical Engineering
Jenny Walker – Aerospace Engineering
Jim Hotopf – General Engineering (Energy & Sustainability)
Wafia Roslan – Computer Science
Anikesh Suresh – Computer Science (AI) with Year in Industry

Prize awarded: £1,500

Second place: Swarm Robotics for Disaster Relief

Severe natural disasters are a common occurrence in some parts of the world and the dangers to disaster relief workers can be extreme. The team proposes a solution using a combination of terrestrial and aerial robots, each equipped with a range of sensors. Through the use of parabolic microphones, CO2 detectors, infrared cameras and more, they can search for signs of life in this tough terrain. Working as a swarm, these robots can precisely map their environments and provide detailed navigational information to allow human workers to reach trapped civilians quickly and, most importantly, safely.

Students:

Benjamin Brixton – Computer Systems Engineering
Henry Sheard – Systems and Control Engineering with a Year in Industry
Maximillian Magee – Aerospace Engineering
Anthony Reed – Aerospace Engineering
Xinye Yang – Computer Science

Prize awarded: £1,000

Third place: CaptureSat

CaptureSat is a space debris removal system operating from a 3U CubeSat platform. It is designed for deployment as a small satellite constellation so as to annually remove sufficient debris to mitigate the progression of Kessler Syndrome. Also deployable as a single unit, the system is, however, flexible so as to meet the needs of a variety of clients, including the protection of particular spacecraft and specific debris removal.

Students:

Kai Weakley-Rugge – Aerospace Engineering
Oliver Nevile – Aerospace Engineering with a Year in Industry
Yuze Shen – Computer Science
Emma Bladen – General Engineering with a Year in Industry
Nur F Binti Abu Hasan – Electrical & Electronic Engineering
Daniel G Adlam – Mechanical Engineering

Prize awarded: £500

Positive feedback

Engineering You’re Hired is an important learning experience for the second year Faculty of engineering students. The Engineering in Business competition adds an exciting layer of opportunity and it provides a chance to win funding that can further fuel their passion. This financial boost motivates students to delve deeper into their project, take it to the next level, and truly showcase their engineering knowledge and skills. Furthermore, this competition fosters confidence as they are presenting to industry experts, honing transferable skills in pitching ideas, which is an asset for their future career path. In short, this competition is a fantastic way to turn their Engineering You’re Hired project into a springboard for future success.

Dr Raja Toqeer
Senior University Teacher
University of Sheffield