2001 Weir Warman Competition

Weir Warman Competition 2001

Sydney, Australia - September 2001

 

2001 Final Report

Prepared by Chris Snook - University of Southern Queensland

General comments

Seventeen engineering schools from Australasia participated in the National Final of the 2001 Warman Student Design and Build Competition held at the Powerhouse Museum on the 29th September 2001.

A total of nineteen engineering schools were involved in the competition this year at the campus level. Unfortunately one team withdrew from the National Final due to illness, and the team from ADFA withdrew at short notice when their device suffered a catastrophic failure that could not be rebuilt in time.

Device variety

The winners representing each university and Campus Organisers reported that there was considerable variety in the proposed solutions at the campus level, with most campuses trialing a variety of designs and construction techniques.

This variety of design alternatives was also seen at the National Final. There was good competition between devices utilising similar design solutions and very strong competition between devices of different approaches (eg those that chose to maximise height only, and those that chose to maximise transport rate).

During the final

Ten devices operated successfully for both runs during the National Final. Two devices produced one successful run and, unfortunately, five devices did not produce a successful run even though they did operate successfully during the practice sessions. Some of these failures occurred because:

  • a string feeding mechanism became entangled;
  • a microswitch did not operate properly;
  • loose wires were connected with the wrong polarity; and
  • two devices veered to one side and ran off of the track.


    A few devices and teams had problems because they did not comply adequately with the rules (eg meeting the pre-release dimensional constraints). These devices were able to be modified prior to the National Final. An additional problem was that some teams struggled to setup in the time allowed or their device ran for longer than the maximum allowable time.

     

    Winners 2001

    1st University of Queensland

    • 2nd Monash University (Clayton)

    3rd University of Auckland.

    A special Ingenuity Prize was awarded to the team representing the University of Tasmania for their device which was capable of a lift in excess of 4.5m, utilising stabilising arms for their vertical lift.