Sunday 22 / December / 2024
Muscat: Omani engineering students recently displayed projects, some of which are graduation projects, to highlight the need for innovative, eco-friendly designs that could help both the general public and the business community.
The Seventh Engineering Student Gathering saw participation from from Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Egypt and Saudi Arabia exhibiting 45 products, built to follow the theme Zero Percent (Zero%).
Products on display ranged from solar powered garbage bins and auto-tunnel lights to eco-friendly water heaters and brain powered wheel chairs.
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Solar Powered Garbage Bins
A group of engineering students from SQU created a solar powered garbage dispenser that could be used in homes, public locations or as a neighborhood bin.
The project was designed to solve two problems, including the immense clutter of rubbish around large bins in neighborhoods and near houses,in a bid to become less dependent upon landfills.
“There are 317 landfills in the Sultanate; all this land could be used for projects, residential buildings or parks and gardens. Also, the gases emitted from landfills have an adverse affect on the Ozone layer,” said Asaad Al Qasmi, one of the student inventors.
For garbage to be properly disposed of, it must be treated and sterilized. The eco-friendly bin operates using solar power, allowingan individual to dispose of his trash and the bin automatically crushes the contents. An internal liquid sterilizer will then treat the waste,while external mist-sterilizer treat the bin from outside.
“When the bin is full, people usually leave their trash around the bin. So when it is full, a signal will alert municipality officials to dispatch someone to empty the bin,” Al Qasmi explained.
He said that when the exhibition is over, he plans to send a proposal to environmental company Be’ah.
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Automated Painter
This device could help painters avoid painting tall buildings. An automated painter is suspended by cables attached to two pivots on either side of the building. Painters will be able to input the design or area that needs to painted on a computer, which will instruct the robot to begin painting the building.
“Painters will benefit from this project because sometimes painters have to cover hard to reach areas, as well as climb thirty story buildings to paint. They could fall and injure themselves or worse; they do face danger sometimes,” said a student.
The “airless” paint machine, named because it is suspended in the air, comes with a program that enables users to draw their company logo,followed by the machine painting it on the building.
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Mind Control Wheelchair
The aim of this project is to help disabled people move awheelchair using only their thoughts.
Yazan Al Musafir, one of the designers, said, “By using brain signals or EEG (electroencephalography) signals, we can determine what the person is thinking about, after analysis; whether it is going forward, backwards, left or right.”
The speed depends upon the mechanism installed on the wheel chair.
The exhibition will be on display until 6 April at the Grand Hall in the Cultural center at SQU, and it is open to the public.
