Media statement by Nomonde Mbadi, Executive Director of Corporate Affairs

Six students of the Durban University of Technology (DUT) recently won the Most Innovative Project Award in the Siemens Cyber Junkyard 2008 Competition in Johannesburg. The students entered their BTech degree project in the competition.

The National competition, organised by Siemens and FEsto, was open to all universities in the SADC region. The DUT team of innovative engineers was placed in the third position in the competition.

This year’s competition involved the design and fabrication of a hot beverage manufacturing plant that received orders using wireless communications from remote ordering stations. These orders had to be received, processed and despatched using an autonomous transporter.

The students are Anesh Sewpersad, Asheen Serpal, Ugen Chetty, Poovan Govender, Mishen Bageloo and Shane Govender.They are currently doing a BTech degree in Electrical Engineering: Light Current.

Poovan Govender, presently employed as a project engineer at Systems Automation and Management, is proud that their innovative project was recognised. He says they had to build the beverage manufacturing machine as part of their automation project. He adds that this machine, which is linked to a computer, can take orders and is able to deliver the beverage to the customer’s desk.

Asheen Serpal is pleased with the outcome of the competition. He says he is excited to have created a beverage making plant that is able to produce coffee, add sugar and milk, receive orders remotely and transports coffee/tea to the customer sitting at the table.

Anesh Sewpersad, an account engineer at Siemens, is thrilled with the good results they received at the competition as a team. He says they had to design, construct and create a beverage making plant that has capabilities to receive orders, manufacture beverage, and delivers it to the customer as part of their BTech design project. He says his team applied their wealth of experience.

Project leader, Dr Poobie Govender commented that the students were given the opportunity to apply their programming skills, knowledge of process control, electronics and mechanical engineering. He added that this contributed towards the reinforcing of their knowledge. He further said that the competition also afforded them the opportunity to work as a team and manage a project according to a strict time-frame.

For comment, please contact Dr Poobie Govender on 031 373 2477 or 082 299 1379. To interview students, please contact them on the following:
Asheen Serpal – 084 610 1518
Pooven Govender – 083 306 2957
Anesh Sewpersad – 083 7777 256