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Global Engineering
Challenge(GEC) is a week-long program for all the undergraduate engineering
students to work together in groups alongside students from different courses.
As a first-year chemical engineering student, my lecturers and personal tutor
told me about GEC at the beginning of the semester. At the time I couldn’t
understand the purpose and importance of it but this became apparent when I
actually completed the week. Based on the feedback from students that had
already done it, I decided to invest all my energies into the week.
I selected “Smart
Greenhouse” as my priority topic and fortunately it is the one that I was
assigned to. topic I wanted. My group had to come up with a feasible concept
for a smart greenhouse in Kibera, an unrecognised territory in Kenya, that is
facing overpopulation and consequently a shortage of food, as well as numerous
other issues. On the face of it, our task seemed almost impossible, after all,
it was just after semester one and none of us had much practical engineering
experience. Once we thoroughly read the daily task list and the overall
objectives, we realised that it was achievable and something we could
excel in, if every team member put enough effort in.
On the first day, we
decided to select a daily leader to make ensure each one of us got to test out
the reigns and this seemed to run fairly smoothly. However, as the week
progressed, it became apparent why the word “Challenge” is in the title. Our
group was made up of individuals with very different personalities, and
work ethic. There was a realisation that that this was the kind of environment
we would all have to work in the real world of engineering. You do not get a
say who your teammates are going to be and any big design ideas had to be
shared and approved by each member. All of us had to develop and grow in areas
where we may have previously held back before. This was evident when it came to
communicate our individual ideas. Having to explain it in detail to the rest of
the team proved to be surprisingly harder than it sounds. Giving professional
and constructive feedback was almost as crucial as presenting the ideas. You
would exercises like this are obvious in theory, but you can only understand
this once you have had practical experience in an atmosphere such as GEC.
In order to come up
with a smart greenhouse design, we had to consider the factors that we would
have otherwise never thought of. After all, just building a greenhouse with
smart technology was no good if it did not cater to the needs of the society
that it is meant to feed. We had to consider geographical, social, economic and
ethical needs and limitations of Kibera. Being an unrecognized territory, meant
the statistics about Kiberia, were not readily available. In addition to this, the
validity of the available statistics were even more questionable. Despite many
obstacles, we managed to put together our group report and present our final
design idea to the judges.
Finally, after a few
hours of presenting our solution, came the gratifying moment when our Team won
“Best Communicated Solution” in our hub. Knowing all our hard-work and efforts
had paid off and seeing the reward for it (glorious chocolate!) it was worth
every single 9 to 5 day we had to invest.
However, beyond that,
the skills we learnt during GEC were invaluable and it helped us to get into
the mindset of being an “engineer” which is something every first-year student
looks forward to. I truly believe GEC is a great opportunity for us to take our
first steps as future engineers. Now for the dramatic end to this article, here
it is. My team’s smart greenhouse in all its glory!
Disclaimer: the 3D concept model isn’t a specification of our GEC task,
but a certain member of our team was quite talented in computer modelling so
this was just for extra visual panache.
