The winners of the Cyber Junkyard (CJY) competition, a partnership between Festo, Siemens and Lapp Kabel, have recently been announced. The theme was ‘Play the Game, Save the Planet’ – a high-tech soccer game using renewable energy to tie in with the 2010 Fifa World Cup.
The students had six months to build their machines. Many of them lived in their labs for weeks at a time. Entries varied from plain and simple boxes to glamorous and complex showpieces, but in the end the teams with the fastest goal speeds and best energy efficiencies lifted the trophies.
The worthy winners were:
* First place: Durban University of Technology.
* Second place: Northlink College, Cape Town.
* Third place: North West University, Potchefstroom.
* Most Innovative: Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Port Elizabeth.
The three partners sponsored high-tech industrial automation equipment to a dozen universities and colleges across southern Africa, and supported them to produce working machines. Siemens supplied PLCs, touch panels, infrastructure and logistics. Lappcable contributed solar panels and power supplies. Festo provided both the technical details and the dual-axis electrical drives that moved the ball across the playing field using EGC belt drives, as well as KSK connecting shafts, EMMS-ST stepper motors and CMMS-ST motion controllers.
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