Fourteen Ph.D. students from the EPSRC CDT’s in Advanced Composites for Innovation and Science (ACCIS CDT) and Composites Science, Engineering and Manufacturing (CoSEM CDT) took part in their first composite hackathon event in March 2021.
Three companies were invited to set a composite challenge that required some blue sky thinking and the students set to work on researching and brainstorming the problem, evaluating and evolving ideas to come up with solutions. The challenges had to consider industry constraints, such as timescales, costs, manufacturing times, sustainability and energy consumption.
The three companies supporting the day were Airbus, Cecence and Oxford Dynamics. The CDT students were split into teams and the companies provided team briefings to kickstart the day and then dropped in partway through to answer any questions that may have arisen. They then returned at the end of the day for the presentations from the students. Each team of students worked solely with one company and then the whole group came together at the end to see what each team had achieved.
First year CDT student, Tom Pratt, participated in the Airbus challenge that was set by Professor Ian Lane, Senior Expert - Composite Analysis, and said: “I really enjoyed the Hackathon with Airbus, the challenge was genuinely fascinating and engaging and it was a lot of fun. I came away from the day with a real buzz, this is definitely the kind of thing I hoped I would be doing when I signed up for the CDT.”
Second year CDT students, Calum McInnes and Alex Moss, said of the event: “The hackathon was a great opportunity to quickly develop team building skills. The scheduled client check-ins were very useful in assessing whether the team was on track.” and “I enjoyed taking the day to focus on something other than my Ph.D. work. It felt like I was working for a company for a day which was tiring but rewarding. I appreciated the challenge and generally found it interesting.”
Mike Lawton, founder of Oxford Dynamics, said: “What a day! A really useful, fun, and productive Hackathon with our friends at Bristol Composites Institute, University of Bristol. Very impressed with how quickly our student team seized the problem of our 'denticle' manufacturing challenge: how to achieve micro manufactured structures across large surface areas.”
Sam Bunyan, founder & head of industry engagement at Cecence, said: “Cecence greatly enjoyed working with a team of Ph.D. students on a potential production innovation that could further decrease our already low energy usage manufacturing processes and contribute to the carbon neutral composites of the future. We would highly recommend other companies getting involved in future hackathons with Bristol University to promote and accelerate disruptive innovation which is good for business and good for the planet.”
The next event will run in November 2021, if your company would like to participate then please contact the CDT’s Industry Engagement Manager, Keri Montague, for more details.
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