“Where There is No Engineer”: Bringing the World into the Classroom
This year, over 600 students from nine universities in Dublin, Cork, Carlow, Waterford, Galway and Belfast took part in the WTINE program. The National Finals took place in Trinity College Dublin on Saturday 4th June.
The WTINE program allows participants to learn about design, teamwork and communication through real, inspiring, sustainable and cross-cultural development projects. Every year we work with our partners to create design challenges for students. The program is jointly funded by Irish Aid, Bentley Systems and the Arup Trust.
This year EWB Ireland worked with communities in Kabwe, Zambia and Kameswaram, India, in collaboration with our partners Zamda Ireland and Friend In Need India Trust (FIN).
The judging panel, consisting of judges from Irish Aid, EWB Ireland, FIN and 80:20 Educating and Acting for a Better World, selected the ThInk DIY ink production project as the overall winner. ThInk was developed by a team of Final Year product design students at TU Dublin. It aims to open the possibility of sustainable print media for use in classrooms in underdeveloped areas, where the ink is made using water, charcoal dust, gum arabic and honey.
The EWB Innovation Award went to TU Dublin’s Future Greens team for their Microgreens project. Future Greens is an educational instruction leaflet that guides students to grow their own microgreens using waste materials such as old plastic bags and cereal boxes.
The First Year award was presented to a civil engineering team for their Water Filter project. The team had designed a handheld filter for the location of Zambia that can be used to remove harmful chemicals and contaminants from water.
Special mention was given to two projects; the Grow Better with Ecosan animation video from a team at the National College of Art and Design and Kameswaram Green Academy by Rory Staunton from the South East Technological University.
EWB Ireland will be developing the winning projects further this summer with our partners in our Innovation Academy. The 2023 edition of “Where There Is No Engineer” (WTINE23) will be launched in September 2022. For further information, please contact emma.brown@ewb-ireland.org.