Department of Engineering and Design

Global Design Challenge 2018

This year, the students tackled issues faced by residents in Kibera, an informal settlement in Nairobi. All year 1 students from across the Computing, Engineering and Design degrees, including Study Group students, took part, competing against other teams to come up with the most promising solution, considering issues of sustainability, culture and the environment, as well as the technical dimensions.

A young male is standing in front of a projected image of a diagramStudents presenting their work

group of people in front of a screenGlobal Design Challenge Teaching Team with Winners and Runners Up

The winning team were: Jóhann Vormadal, Elizabeth Camara, Lauren Heywood-Law, Louis Ward and Taehee Bae. The team investigated a solution to the problem of water supply in Kibera and proposed a novel solution, called FLOW, that allowed remote monitoring of water supply. Their solution involved installation of a network of flow-meters, communicating with a central system. Information from flow meters can then be monitored from apps allowing water vendors and the community to be involved in detection and reporting to vendors of breaks in supply. The team is commended for a technologically sound solution that considers how the vendors and end-users can be incentivized to get involved and to ensure sustainability.

Josh Leonard, Wei Hin Andes Lo, Christian Eastwood, Zakaria Ferchiche and Danny Flahive considered issues around energy supply, and proposed a design involving a solar panel and ventilation unit that can be installed in the roof of a house.

The winning and runner up teams are now working on their submissions to go through to compete against students from other Universities across the UK, in The Engineering for People Design Challenge Grand Final.