Engineers Without Borders Challenge 2024
University of Applied Sciences RheinMain secures 2nd place
08.02.2024 - The interdisciplinary student team from University of Applied Sciences RheinMain has come out on top with its idea: With the "Maarifa Xplorer", a STEM experiment kit for schools in Uganda, the team has achieved 2nd place in the Engineers Without Borders Challenge (IoGC) 2023/24.
The winning student team from University of Applied Sciences RheinMain (HSRM) is made up of students from the Applied Physics, Real Estate Management, Interior Architecture and Interdisciplinary Engineering degree programs. Out of a total of 34 teams from German universities and colleges, three HSRM entries - "Scientific Journey", "Maarifa Xplorer" and "MMP 3" - were voted into the top 10 by the jury. In the second round, the ten selected teams presented their projects and answered the jury's questions.
From the jury's point of view, the flexible concept, convenient handling and the name of the suitcase were convincing arguments for the award of 2nd place. Maarifa is Swahili and means knowledge or awareness. In addition to University of Applied Sciences RheinMain, Cologne University of Applied Sciences impressed the judges with its "Sparky" avatar and was awarded 3rd place. First place went to the "Light Lab Board", developed at the technical university in Dortmund.
The task
This year's challenge focused on the development of experimental kits for science lessons in the 5th to 7th grades in Uganda in order to make theoretical classes there more practical. In the competition, students were asked to develop holistic approaches for real-life development cooperation projects. Under the technical direction of Prof. Dr. Hans-Dieter Bauer, Prof. Kay Fingerle, Prof. Horst Roman-Müller and Prof. Dr. Martin Zeumer, the students succeeded in a unique, interdisciplinary collaboration, which included the identification of suitable experiments, the development of a wide variety of design concepts adapted to this, as well as the graphic or imaging implementation in the explanatory video.
The Engineers Without Borders Challenge
The Engineers Without Borders Challenge (IoGC) is a competition between students from different universities with a holistic approach and real projects. Around 1,200 students took part last time. The challenge is implemented by the non-profit and independent organization for development cooperation Ingenieure ohne Grenzen e. V. in cooperation with a project partner in the project region and interested universities in Germany. This year's project partner is Suubi Community Projects in Uganda.
As part of a semester seminar, interested students work on concept ideas on current development cooperation topics with annually changing tasks. Using problems from the everyday life of Engineers without Borders, they learn to develop ideas and concepts and make a contribution to the development of disadvantaged regions in the Global South. In 2019/20, HSRM took part in the competition for the first time and was rewarded with 3rd place.
