Auckland Uni celebrates record win in design competition

WELLINGTON - Auckland University has won first place in a mechanical engineering competition for its design of a seed-planting robot designed to beautify highways.

The Auckland team beat 15 universities from around Australasia to claim the top prize in the Warman Design and Build Competition in Sydney.

Anatoli Koudriachov, 20, Nicholas Wong, 20, and Jonathon Platt, 20, from the faculty of engineering formed the winning Mechatronics team.

Auckland now holds the record number of wins at the annual competition, having clocked up its fourth top placing since 1997.

The competition challenges second year mechanical engineering students to design and build a device to solve a practical problem set each year by the organisers, engineering firm Weir Warman.

This year's challenge, called Project ABC (Autonomously Beautify Countryside), was to design an autonomous device that would accurately and rapidly distribute wild flower seeds along the highways of fictitious planet "Gondwana".

Team manager and senior lecturer in mechanical engineering Simon Bickerton said this year's prototype used clever design techniques, setting it apart from the others.

"Most of the devices were controlled by a programmable microchip, which ours had, but we also had infra-red sensors and a very reliable way of doing a 90 degree turn."

- NZPA