Mechanical Technology November 2015

⎪ Innovative engineering ⎪

Stellenbosch wins PneuDrive Challenge 2015

Autonomous Warehouse Floor Cleaner, which also received the Innovation prize.

The PneuDrive Challenge, a mechatronics design competition for engineering students throughout South Africa, has come to a close for 2015, with Stellenbosch once again walking away with top honours.

Stellenbosch’s BottleBot takes first place The Mechabrewers team from Stel- lenbosch University visited local micro beer brewery, Stellenbrau, and analysed a specific problem – the need for an efficient, inexpensive and automated application for transporting empty beer bottles to the capping machine. Micro-breweries do not always have the capital to invest in expensive equip- ment. Thus they often rely on rudimen- tary means of solving problems, such as transporting bottles in a factory. Stellenbrau relies on manual labour for most of its operations. The Stellenbosch team – consist- ing of Reghardt Pretorius, Johannes Leuvennink, Madeli du Toit, Josua Blom and Jean Swart, under the guidance of lecturer, Cobus Muller – proposed a solution to improve and add value to the company by allowing better utilisation of labour, and improvements in time and efficiency. Called BottleBot, the solution by automates the transportation of empty beer bottles to the capping machine. BottleBot has a low energy consump- tion (24.474 kWh per year) and has been designed to be controlled by a smart phone or tablet device. The BottleBot can increase efficiency and accuracy through complete automation and elimination of human error and contamination. One cycle consists of picking up 12 bottles on one side of the production line and placing them onto the capping machine on the opposite side. The duration of each cycle can be as low as 8.0 sec. The BottleBot’s retail price will be sig- nificantly lower than the price of similar products available on the market and the capital expense can be recouped within two-and-a-half years. WITS University’s Potato Game Changer This team had a technical entry of a high standard that addresses the problem of transforming waste into useable energy in a potato chip factory. Potato chip factories produce signifi- cant quantities of starch-laden wastewa- ter and solid vegetable wastes such as potato peels. The starch wastewater

T he 2015 PneuDrive challenge was to design a game changer for the food and beverage indus- try. This year’s competitors had the opportunity to step across the ‘bridge’ between academic theory and business reality. The winners of the competition receive a ten-day all expenses paid trip to Europe where they will have an op- portunity to present their designs to the head offices of the sponsor companies – another invaluable learning opportunity for young engineers. SEW-Eurodrive and SMC Pneumatics also offer equipment

to competing universities to ensure that future students are afforded the opportu- nity to experiment with the latest in drive engineering and pneumatic technology. The judging panel, consisting of industry and product experts, worked through the entries during a two-day judging process at the SEW-Eurodrive offices in Johannesburg. The top three teams for the 2015 competition were announced on Friday 6 November 2015: Stellenbosch University for its BottleBot; WITS for the Potato Game Changer; and WITS’ second entry for an

The PneuDrive Challenge judging panel consisted of a range of industry experts, from left to right: John Menasce, Hatch Consulting Engineering and Project Implementation; Brian Abbott, product manager SMC Pneumatics South Africa; Johan van Graan, trainer at SEW-Eurodrive; Riaan van Eck, training manager at SMC Pneumatics South Africa; Mark Gordon, ESKOM; Eugene Tondolo, South African Fluid Power Association; Conrad Pilger, GM sales & engineering, SEW-Eurodrive; Tobias Nittel, food and beverage con- veying expert, SEW-Eurodrive, Germany; and Greg Perry, GM operations, SEW-Eurodrive South Africa.

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Mechanical Technology — November 2015