The 2022 International Conference of Nigerian Institution of Mechanical Engineers have come and gone with a lot of memories and takeaways by the participants. At 2022 edition, one of the event organised was the Patrick Andrew Innovation Challenge. A competition among creative innovative mechanical engineering students across the country.
On Friday, October 21st 2022, two LAUTECH student teams took the first and second position at the 2022 Patrick Andrew engineering innovation, held at University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
The 2022 Patrick Andrew engineering innovation, started on, Tuesday, 18th October and ended on Friday, 21st October, 2022 with various students groups showcases their innovations.
The Patrick Andrew Innovative Competition is a National innovative Competition organised by the Nigerian Institution of Mechanical Engineers. It is opened to all Mechanical Engineering Students in Nigeria, who have developed engineering innovative concepts and prototypes.
The team members with the first names to emerge were Ayanwole Moses (500L) and Abisoye Akinloye ( 500L). While, Taoheed Oyewo (500L), Ayanwole Emmanuel (500L), and 100L Fathiu Olatunbosun’s team finished in second position.
Two engineering innovations based on energy and additive manufacturing were presented by the two teams. Both the winning team’s and the runner-up team’s innovations were respectively a Hybrid (Solar-Wind) power generation system, and a Disability Inclusive Latrine PAN (DILPAN).
Speaking with Ayanwole Moses, a CAD designer, of the team who came first, on how they came up with the innovation, he said:
“Certainly, necessity is the mother of invention and is fathered by experience. We came up with the invention as a result of an industrial accident we experienced at a power generating plant after a handful thought of what other systems could be environmentally friendly and would place little or no hazard to people around.” Ayanwole further stated that “the innovation’s impact is to solve the Nigerian country’s electrical problem.”
In a similar vein, Oyewo Taoheed, the lead innovator of the team that emerged second, said:
“The innovation was birthed base on our exposure to the journals of UNICEF, Water Sanitation and Hygiene(WASH), which says in Nigeria, with an estimated 48 million residents practicing open defecation as of 2020, is one of the countries with the highest rates of unsafe defecation globally (UNICEF 2020). We discovered this is detrimental to the health and well-being of the general population, particularly children, girls, and the disabled who usually have special needs and supports to use toilets especially in the rural area”
Oyewo added that,”The impact of the design is to address the challenges of open defecation in Nigeria. The plastic design is cheap and acts as an effective seal over the toilet. In addition to the sanitary benefits, the DILPAN pan also acts as a basic safety measure. Because of the nature of some open-pit latrines, young children face the risk of falling inside.”
The Five-day conference includes a variety of events, such as Fellows Round-table, Industrial Visits, technical Session, Group dynamics competitions, an exhibition, and the awarding of fellowship among others.
To Ayanwole, “the conference was a great one, and it opened our eyes to new things which make us learn, relearn and unlearn.”
He further stated that, ” We are motivated that some sects have an interest in the innovative ideas of young Nigerians, so we shall keep pushing on in proffering solutions to problems around us until our innovations make Nigeria a better place to stay amidst other countries.”
LAUTECH Students has been blazing the trail in innovations in recent times. For example, on Saturday, September 17, 2022, three Ladoke Akintola University Technology students in a team of four, including a graduate at the University of Calabar, emerged in the third position with a point of 12.5% at the just concluded Hague Institute Hackathon in Ikoyi, Lagos.
The Hackathon started on September 10 and ended On September 17, announcing the team’s victory at the finals.
Hague Institute for Innovative law (HIIL) is a private organisation devoted to making justice accessible to the public with the use of technology as a standpoint.
The team (team Pathfinder) is led by a student of LAUTECH, Emmanuel Ayanwole; a 500L Mechanical Engineering student including Taoheed Oyewo; a 500L Mechanical Engineering student in LAUTECH, Taofikat Wakeel; a 300L Food Science & Engineering student in LAUTECH, and Michael Eneji; a graduate of Political Science from the University of Calabar.
The team Pathfinder was faced with the quest to develop a mobile app for justice solutions, categorised into money-related and family disputes.
But coming up with an idea to develop a mobile app called D’MARKIT. This app operates like a marketplace for retailers and SMEs (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) with the future of Escrow service to reduce fraud-related issues in online shopping.
Emmanuel speaking on the impact of the app said, “D’MARKIT helps to improve the growth of SMEs with an online presence and be free from fraud; D’MARKIT helps to improve the tractions for online trading services; D’MARKIT helps to achieve SDG 16 (Peace, Justice & Strong Institution).”
Although, the team leader got a rejection mail from HIIL after applying, he reached out to the necessary channels with tangible reasons to be selected for the Hackathon 2022 program. Fortunately, the team were reconsidered for the program.
In his words “After applying for the 2022 Justice FUBU (Justice For You By You) Hackathon on behalf of my team; #TeamPathfinder, I got the rejection mail from HIIL. After then, I reached out to the necessary channels to tender my team’s uniqueness and tangible reasons to be selected for the Hackathon program.”
“Luckily for my team, we got a reconsideration mail to attend the one-week Hackathon Program,” he said.
The one-week program consisted of activities ranging from team bonding, collaboration, idea forming, design thinking process, screening session, prototyping to pitching.
With this victory, the team has secured automatic admission into the next cohort of HIIL Incubation Programme called Justice Entrepreneurship School happening in the first half of next year. The team will be learning how to run a justice-focused startup, including basics of testing and analytics and specifically in-depth MVP, Customer discovery, with a focus on MOM (manufacturing operation management) Test methodology, among others.
Contributed by LAUTECH Students