Institution news
Twelve student engineering teams feature in the contest being held at the Stapleford Miniature Railwaynear Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire from 29 June to 2 July.
The teams, 11 from the UK and one from Germany, compete against each other to design and manufacture the best, most innovative, efficient and quietest small-scale locomotive.
Among those competing is a team of seven student engineers from WMG at the University of Warwick.
Louise Jackson, Team Leader for WMG’s team said: “Taking part in the Railway Challenge gives us the opportunity to put our imagination and resourcefulness to the test.
“As student engineers, the experience will be invaluable to the whole team in our future careers and we are looking forward to the final competition this week.”
Meanwhile Andrey Kondratjev, Team Leader for the Siemens/University of Southampton’s team said: “As early career engineers, the experience in multi-disciplinary project such as this, combining electrical, mechanical engineering, procurement and logistics skills will be invaluable to the whole team in our current & future careers and we are looking forward to the final competition.”
Philippa Oldham, Head of Transport and Manufacturing at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, said: "The Railway Challenge gives competitors a fantastic chance to test their engineering skills and get the hands-on experience of what’s needed to make a locomotive from start to finish.
"The competition is run along the lines of a real-life tendering process, and teams have to prepare a business case, finance, design, and build a locomotive from scratch."
The full list of competing teams is:
- Alstom UK & Ireland
- University of Birmingham
- Bombardier/Derby University
- Brunel University
- FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences
- University of Huddersfield (winners in 2013)
- Manchester Metropolitan University
- University of Sheffield
- SNC-Lavalin (winners in 2012 and 2016)
- University of Southampton
- TfL (winners in 2014 and 2015)
- WMG, University of Warwick