Projects supported by the HKUEAA Experiential Learning Fund 2018-19

The H.K.U. Engineering Alumni Association (HKUEAA) was founded in 1975. The Association brings together HKU engineering students and graduates of all years and disciplines. She has provided members with a platform to share professional know-how and to keep abreast of the latest trends and development
in engineering fields. The Association also puts effort on better education for the next generation.

The establishment of the HKUEAA Experiential Learning Fund (ELF) was envisioned to lift up the creative, interdisciplinary and hands-on abilities of our young generation. The fund has been used to support experiential learning activities at the Innovation Wing in the Faculty of Engineering. It helped to foster and embrace creative and interdisciplinary ideas, and to facilitate the actualization of students’ ideas through hands-on projects so that they can “learn by doing”. The students were facilitated to think out-of-the-box and enhanced their critical thinking and entrepreneurship skills.

The fund has supported more than 10 experiential learning projects and 170 students in HKU Engineering in the 2018-19 academic year.

Projects supported by the HKUEAA
Experiential Learning Fund 2018/19

RoboMaster @ 1st Inno Show

RoboMaster Robotics Competition focuses on the comprehensive application and engineering practice ability of the participating members in science and engineering disciplines, fully integrating many robot related technical disciplines such as “machine vision”, “embedded system design”, “mechanical control”, “inertial navigation”, “human-computer interaction”, etc. At the same time, the innovative combination of e-sports presentation and robotic competition makes the robot confrontation more intuitive and intense, attracting the attention and participation of many technology enthusiasts and the public. (Robomaster official website)

British Model Fly Association (BMFA) 2019 University and Schools Flight Challenges

The Design, Build & Fly (DBF) is a regular capstone design project under the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Every year, many ME students show a very strong enthusiasm in this project and our department encourages them to participate in different international competitions. Many student competitions are based on solving “real” cases and problems. By participating in a competition, it helps students to build up links between thinking and doing so that they learn to apply theories into practice with a deeper understanding of the concepts.

Formula Student 2019 Class 2 competition

Formula Student UK is an educational engineering competition. The competition aims to develop enterprising and innovative young engineers and encourage more young people to take up a career in engineering. Formula Student UK 2019 will be held at Silverstone Circuit, Towcester, UK. HKU team will join the Electric Vehicles Class 2 Division competition.

HKU Engineering students @ IBL Global Inclusive STEM+ Leadership week

This year marks the expansion of the Global Inclusive Leadership Program from China to Thailand. More than one thousand students in eighteen institutes from Greater China, Thailand and the UK participate in the leadership weeks. Students immerse themselves in a cross-cultural and social-mixing environment to develop and work closely together to come up with solutions that go beyond their training while adapting themselves in different cultural settings and developing global-minded perspective. For the participants, it is a journey of self-discovery and self-development. Among the values and skills students acquire in the program, innovative ideas, unconditional love and the spirit of teamwork stand out as the most noted and will help them to prepare for the future – a future of global citizenship. As one of the most respected educators in Thailand remarks: “it is truly an education of the twenty-first century.”

IMechE The Greater China Design Competition

The Greater China Design Competition 2019 (GCDC) was held by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Participants are required to design an energy relay system consists of four cars with different sources of energy, e.g. electrical, elastic energy, solar power, … etc. Each car was required to complete a 4m (L) X 0.5m (W) width path and trigger another car, hence, to finish a total of 12 meters straight path.

ClearBot 2019: Decentralized Robot Swarms to Clean our Oceans

Ocean plastics destroy our natural marine and coastal habitats, endanger wildlife across the globe, pollute our food chain, and ultimately affecting the global water-food-energy nexus. Here, we present ClearBot, a scalable, AI-powered, plastic collecting intelligent robotic solution to address the ocean plastic epidemic with a sustainable community-centric symbiotic ecosystem.

Design, Build & Fly for (2019-2020) AIAA competition

Lumino

Guide dogs and white canes are currently the most common forms of navigational aid for the visually impaired. Though common, it is not an effective solution as there is a severe shortage of only 50 guide dogs in Hong Kong. Guide dog training is time-consuming and white canes on the other hand are limited to its length, and the true nature of the detected obstructions are unknown to the user.

Lumino aims to provide a cost-efficient one-stop solution to barrier-free movement for the visually impaired.

It is a innovative device that represents both a guide dog and a white cane by providing smart-object identification, hazard identification, real time GPS navigation with additional markers and haptic feedback.

Mixed Reality (MR) ready aircraft

Airlines have started removing IFE monitors to promote fuel economy and give way to handheld devices while losing traction and loyalty from passengers. Meanwhile, a US$300-million market of MR technology has just propelled recently and will soon become a new standard of entertainment. Under this narrative, MR ready aircraft opens up a huge variety of entertainment options to passengers and convincing business opportunities to airlines. Yet, without a standardized platform, MR developers are less interested in projects around aircraft, a subject with tedious regulations and tremendous know-how of engineering.

SKYLINER is a middleware designed for MR developers to create and publish their work on board, where passengers and crews can benefit from limitless creations. The platform includes components that are crucial to developers, like spatial understanding of the cabin environment, and compliance to regulations. SKYLINER would soften the grind during the development stage and take care of the needs of partners in MR industry.

MR ready aircraft and SKYLINER mean an opportunity of partnership with IT giants, reinforce the pledge of offering premium service and keep AIRBUS at the helm in the market.

Duckietown AI-Driving

HKU Duckietown Project is an interdisciplinary project that aims to democratise A.I. and robotics research. Through this project, students will gain tangible experience in a fun and playful way in prototyping self-driving robots and applying A.I. to the physical education platform developed by MIT for experiential learning.
A project highlight is the students’ participation in the A.I. Driving Olympics (AI-DO) international contests, with the live final events co-locate with NIPS and ICRA, the prestigious conferences in A.I. and robotics. Through the preparation of the competitions for over half a year, students will undergo intensive trainings, foster peer collaborations, solidify their knowledge and demonstrate a sustainable learning outcome.

MECH4412 Automated storage and retrieval system design competition

Under the course MECH4412 (Design and manufacturing), the hands-on project is an important element which allows the students to develop hands-on skill and problem-solving technique. In the last academic year, the project title was “An automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS)”. ASRS consists of a variety of computer-controlled systems for automatically placing and retrieving loads from defined storage locations. The benefits of an AS/RS system include reduced labour for transporting items into and out of inventory, reduced inventory levels, more accurate tracking of inventory, and space savings. Items are often stored more densely than in systems where items are stored and retrieved manually.

“I would like to express my sincere gratitude to our H.K.U. Engineering Alumni Association for your generous support and guidance. In the coming year, we will have a wider range of experiential learning projects, to lift up the creative, interdisciplinary, and hands-on abilities of our young generation.

The Inno Wing will open in mid-2020 and will become a focal point to cultivate interdisciplinary innovations and equip students with the ability to meet the rapidly changing ecosystem of the engineering field, with an ultimate goal to make a real impact to Hong Kong and the world as an engineer. You have paved the way to success for our young generations. We are feeling proud of you, and wish you will proud of us too.”