On Aug. 23, the contestants from Southwest Jiaotong University were awarded three first prizes, three second prizes, and one third prize in the finals of the 10th Mechanical Innovative Design Competition for National College Student, excelling many of their peers in the numbers and levels of awards.

Theridiidaeoid Probe Robot, a brilliant work by the team under the guidance of Profs. Pan Yajia and Zhang Zeqiang, has been granted the Creativity Award of China Good Design. Worth mentioning is that the University has been awarded “Excellent Organizer” for 10 consecutive years for its service in the Sichuan division.

The Competition, supported by the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Finance and enlisted in the first batch of national disciplinary contests for students in higher institutions in 2017, is a contest open to all college students and held every two years. The 10th competition, with the theme of “Nature·Harmony”, requires competitors to design and create biomimetic machines and machines for ecological restoration. Organizers of the event encourage college students to learn from, to love, and to protect the nature instead of being merely concerned about their own academic performance.

1. An integrated robot for tree planting in deserts     2. A theridiidaeoid probe robot      3. A multifunctional and retractable catoid robot

Due to the COVID-19 resurgence, the second round of the finals was shifted onto the online platform covering procedures of PPT presentation, work demonstration, and judges questioning. The works were graded based on multiple factors, including the machines’ novelty, creativity, applicability, feasibility, functionality, production, and quality of the drawings. As a result, 162 teams (3% of the total) were awarded the first prize, 266 (5% of the total) the second prize, and 125 the third prize, besides, 9 teams (2‰ of the total) won the award of “China Good Design”.