The national finals of the 'Where There Is No Engineer' design competition took place on June 27, 2020, via Zoom, with the winning projects this year being Flyco: Black Soldier Fly farm, Cue and Science Cubes.

'Where There Is No Engineer' (WTINE): Designing for Community Resilience is co-ordinated by Engineers without Borders Ireland and the Development Technology in the Community (DTC) Research Group, TU Dublin.

Design solutions

The competition is now in its sixth year and is growing its reach with universities around the country year on year. It is a global design challenge competition which gives participants the opportunity to design solutions for real life problems identified by development partners.

Students build project management skills, communication and teamwork skills and engage in the design thinking process to create their final product.

Every year, an overall winner and two innovation award winners are selected to develop their designs further and work with partner communities to implement them.

The competition is funded as part of the EU Build Solid Ground Development Education and Awareness Raising Initiative, a three-year programme of which both EWB Ireland and TU Dublin are a part.

Plans this year are of course affected by the global pandemic, however we hope this year’s winners will be able to travel in 2021. In 2020, our partner is Zamda Ireland which runs Sables Nua, a centre which provides shelter and schooling for vulnerable children in Kabwe, Zambia.

Innovative products

Students were challenged to create innovative products for the Sables Nua centre under one or more of the WTINE themes of climate resilient infrastructure; self-supply water and sanitation; community participatory health; on and off grid micro energy systems and food security.

Students from universities across Ireland from the North to the South took part in this year’s competition, with eight teams reaching the national finals in June. EWB and the DTC Research Group would like to acknowledge the huge effort made by the students to take part in the finals.

The winning projects this year were Flyco: Black Soldier Fly farm, Cue and Science Cubes. This year’s overall winner was Flyco with its Black Soldier Fly farm, focused on the theme of food security.

The Flyco team is made up of second year Product Design students from TU Dublin: Liam Cotter, Eimear Moore, Brian Richards and Sean Flanagan.

Efficient source of protein

The Black Soldier Fly farm uses easily attainable parts to create an efficient source of protein to be eaten by livestock and poultry while also producing a rich compost and fertiliser spray for crops on a farm.

The Innovation Award winners were Cue from TU Dublin and Science Cubes from the National College of Art and Design (NCAD). Cue was composed of TU Dublin Product Design students Jennifer Hudson, Gearoid Cronin and Vinh Truong. Science Cubes was Sinead Spring’s project, a Product Design student at NCAD.

Cue is a game designed to educate young people and communities about menstrual health management. It aims to debunk rumours and superstition and engage both boys and girl alike in educating themselves about positive menstrual health management.

Science Cubes is a takeaway game that aims to engage teachers and children in discovering simple science experiments through problem solving cubes.