Jarred Spriggs from Deakin University is the overall winner of the inaugural Society of Automotive Engineers Australasia and ABB Australia National Robotics Innovation competition for university students.
The Society of Automotive Engineers and ABB Australia encouraged university students to team up with industry to design and develop an application of a robot in a work cell or process in an industrial application. All entries were evaluated on savings generated, innovation, safety, likelihood of success and presentation skills.
There were three finalists in the competition:
-Will Midgley and Gabrin Raveendran from the University of Melbourne, with their proposal for the robot installation of an instrumentation panel for Ford. The group impressed the judges with their slick animations and by being well-prepared and exceptionally knowledgeable in the work they had completed, setting the standard for the groups to follow.
-Jarred Spriggs and Aaron Dixon, from Deakin University, with their proposal for an automated vehicle glazing application for Ford and managed to again make an impact on the judges through their technical knowledge and ability to get through a barrage of questioning.
-Lee Underwood, Glenn Madden, Todd Matthews, Scott Wade and Rob Slavin, also from Deakin University, presented their automated process for combining metal parts and polypropylene for plastics manufacturer RMAX.
Jarred won three months paid work experience with ABB Australia in the Robotics division with all finalists receiving vouchers to attend a robot training course as well as trophies to be presented at a later date.