The OPITO Engineering Summer School - Post Event Summary
Friday 23rd July saw the final day of the OPITO Engineering Summer School. In total 16 students were selected during the qualification days to go through to the full 5 day summer school.
The students challenge was to design, build and test an automated, simulated drilling platform capable of automatically raising and lowering by a minimum of 50mm to accommodate for the state of the tide. Despite working in unfamiliar groups the students really hit the ground running and from first thing Monday morning worked exceptionally well together devising ingenious solutions to the challenge. In between working on their challenge the students had a number of presentations from industry representatives.
Monday saw Liz Davis-Smith of OPITO give an introduction to the summer school and give an overview of OPITO and the Oil and Gas industry.
On Tuesday the students were treated to a double helping of presentations. Firstly Vanessa Haig of Petans Ltd. spoke to the students about safety considerations within the Oil and Gas sector. This also involved the students getting the chance to try on some survival gear for size! The picture below shows Anthony trying on this years must have outfit!
In the afternoon Ian Robertson gave a fascinating presentation about both Seajacks and the Oil and Gas industry. Ian was pleased to see that the solutions that the students were creating were very similar in principle to those used on their vessels.
On Wednesday we were privileged enough to have not only a presentation but also a tour of Perenco's facilities at Bacton. Steff and Neville gave an excellent presentation and made us feel very welcome during our visit.
On Thursday Stuart Thornton, Operations Manager for EEEGr presented to the students and did well to answer a wide range of challenging questions from the students about all aspects of the energy industry. We were also pleased to be joined by Maureen Traquair of OPITO.
Friday saw the last minute rush for students to finish off their designs before the 2:30 deadline when they would have to present their designs to the group. For some this meant final design touches, for others there was time to make a range of dereks, helipads, rescue boats and other assorted additions! The photo below showing the most highly decorated design with no less than three helipads (including helicopters of course!) and a range of other additions all of which intricately designed and produced from laser cut acrylic.
Maureen Traquair of OPITO was on hand to help judge the winning teams and all designs can be found below.
Team 1
This fantastically well designed solution was hit by some technical gremlins late on Friday but had worked well prior to this.
The design worked around the principle of a rack and pinion setup controlled by a servo motor on each leg. The group found problems with synchronising the individual servos but should be commended in creating the only solution capable of keeping level on even the most uneven surfaces.
Team 2
This team was again hit with some technical problems and as with team 1 had some synchronisation issues with their two servo setup however as can be seen by the photos was ready for testing by the end of Friday.
Again this design used a rack and pinion setup but around a central column.
Team 3
No your eyes are not deceiving you, this team did in fact create two separate designs! Not content with their first design the team went back to the drawing board and came up with a completely different solution to the challenge.
The first design used a rack and pinion setup controlled by two servos acting on a central column. The second design used a single geared servo acting upon a simple yet effective winch mechanism.
This team was awarded the design award not only for being able to come up with two fully working solutions in such a short time but also for their mentality that whilst their first design did the job, they knew that they could make it better.
Team 4
Our final team came up with a fantastic well thought out worm drive solution to the challenge. Using a single servo connected to a set of gears the solution was not only effective but also very efficient in its operation with none of the synchronisation issues that effected the other teams.
The design not only looked fantastic but was awarded the most effective design award.
See below for a video of the winning design in action!
The feedback from the students that took part has been very good and in the week following the summer school one student has joined Hethel Engineering Centre for some further work experience whilst another has applied for work experience at one of HEC's tenant companies.
A further one week OPITO summer school with a similar challenge that is due to be held in October will be announced shortly.
The OPITO Engineering Summer School supported by:
