The challenge

The Challenge is open to teams of up to five students from universities or UTCs. Teams in the UK will compete in regional competitions from March to June, leading to a national final for the regional winners, hosted at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in London, at the start of the following academic year.

Teams in the UK will compete in local regional competitions in March/April, leading to a national final for the regional winners hosted at the Institution’s London headquarters at the start of the following academic year. Teams in the international regions will compete on a similar basis towards a national/regional final.

What’s involved?

Each year students are challenged to undertake a specific project.

The 2024 project brief is to build a repeatable vehicle. The vehicle can be any movable device – wheeled, walking, sliding, jumping, rolling or other. It must move from a point on a flat surface to touch a wall placed at right angles to the point and then return to stop as close as possible to the start point. The device is to be started manually, but once it is underway, no interference or outside control is allowed. The project represents the first stages of a robotic device that could be used for materials handling purposes. The device can be of any construction and propulsion method, limited only by cost and size. Please read the project and general specifications.

The Challenge - four key elements:

1. Work in teams to design, build and test a vehicle to compete with other teams
2. Produce a poster to publicise the team’s work - demonstrating the team’s ability to sell their design solution
3. Give a short presentation explaining the design and development of the device - demonstrating the team’s verbal and presentation skills
4. Submit a peer review where all students have the chance to vote for the best engineered solution to the problem.