Manchester students’ clean sweep at IMechE Design Challenge regional final

Mechanical engineering students from The University of Manchester have enjoyed an unprecedented clean sweep of all available awards in the north-west regional final of the 2023 Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) Design Challenge. 

Two teams of Manchester first-year students entered the competition – a full-day event held at Salford University on 26 April – and competed against teams from the University of Bolton, Lancaster University, Manchester Metropolitan University, the University of Central Lancashire, and Salford University. 

The Design Challenge provides undergraduates with a taste of the ‘real world’ of engineering, challenging them to design, create, present and compete with a device made to strict technical specifications. 

It gives them real industry experience, practical employability skills, and enhanced business and team building skills – all within a set time frame. 

The challenge for 2023 was to design, manufacture and build an internal pipe climber to climb the inside of a 2.5 metre high, 100 mm diameter clear pipe, switch direction at the top and return to the bottom in the shortest time, at a cost of no more than £50. 

Manchester’s Team 1, of Orhan Bagashov, Warnakulasuriya Fernando, Jared Flaxman, William Sandford and Emma Stevenson, finished first overall with the fastest time and won Best Presentation. 

Team 2 – Sophie Hoole, Abigail Johnson, Ioannis Kafkas, Lucas O'Donoghue, Stanley Palmer and Liberty Tanner – had the next fastest time and finished second overall. They also won Best Poster, Best Design and the Peer Review.