EBEC is coming. Is everything ready?

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Right now, you should know a lot of information about EBEC, the local rounds, the national rounds and  the “humans” who have been part of it, but what does the Final Round of EBEC mean from a closer look?

If we think about it, now less than 20 days are missing to the event and people from the whole network are still working on it. More than 80 students from all over Europe are dealing with exams and private life just like everyone else, but in the meanwhile they find the time to proactively organize this huge event. 

Even while I am writing this, the Media Team is managing the promotion, keeping constantly in touch with all the Local Groups, the Topic Group is testing the subjects of the competition, the FR Group is constantly communicating with the partner companies, making any possible effort to satisfy all their needs in the best possible way and all the members of BEST Turin are dealing with logistics and making sure that the Final Round of EBEC will be the most enjoyable of all times.

How is this even thinkable? How could a group of students spread over Europe gather multinational companies and 120 participants from several universities in a single, immense event while studying for exams and without even meeting in person?

The answer is easy: MOTIVATION, PROACTIVITY AND WILLINGNESS OF IMPROVING ARE OUR STRENGHTS. The history taught us that, all together, we can achieve everything and, as Filippo Di Iorio, Photographer for EBEC Final 2017 and PR Coordinator of EBEC Final 2019, said: 

“[The most important thing I learnt from EBEC is] That nothing is impossible. For example volunteers from all over Europe, organising the biggest engineering competition in the old continent. We made it possible. We are continuing to make it possible. We will make it possible forever.”

We are ready, what about you?

Who are the BEST students in your country?

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Do you remember about Local Rounds? (if not, you can read about them in this article and on our channels)

The winners of each Local Round of EBEC have the access to the National/Regional ones to be challenged again, try new experiences and feeling a lot of emotions.

What does it mean being part of a National/Regional Round?

For universities and companies it is a great chance to increase their own visibility, empower their brand and do some networking.
If you are an organising student, on the other hand, it is a wonderful moment to increase your skills, while amusing yourself and meeting new people and companies.
If you are a participant student, finally, it means you are representing your university at a national level, while having the opportunity of having fun, meeting new people and companies.

Of course, it is impossible not to mention the further possibility to work in a team, dealing with different ideas and a limited availability of means to solve a problem; to quote Marie Chaloupkova, who represented Y Soft Corporation during the Final Round of EBEC in 2017:

“I really liked it [the competition] because they have some kind of problem, some time to tackle it and I think that actually all them are winners because they built something, it works and even if it does not work this is what sometimes happens with technology”.

Despite these inspiring and profound words, there are winner teams, tough, and being the winner of a your own country, beside obviously going to the Final Round to represent it.
Right now, all the rounds are gone, who will be the aforementioned brilliant students and who will be the ones to win the title “Top students” in Europe for this edition?

humans of ebec announcment

Announcing “Humans of EBEC”

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When you hear “European engineering competition” what is first thing that pops in your mind? Some serious people with glasses, in white coats, surrounded by wires, cables, sitting behind large monitors? Or 20-something year old students, running through halls of university, carrying piles of materials or cleaning the corridors, laughing and shouting?

First Final round of EBEC was organized in 2009 by Local BEST Group Ghent, and today we want you to meet Lucien Romagnoli – founder of EBEC and it’s first coordinator. For Lucien, EBEC represents new service for engineering students in BEST universities and it brings more focus to technical aspects of engineering studies. 2009 was the first time all LBGs organised a joint pyramid of events, bringing their winners to the same place after two rounds of competition, which was never done before. This was accomplished with support of United Nations, and it was the first time we used media to build and promote the event.

“In 2008, when late night talks about the idea raised, we could have never imagined that a 10th edition would even be possible. Congratulations to all of you” says Romagnoli.

While organizing this big event, most important thing he learnt is “Run fast alone, run far together”, and that is exactly what we are doing this ten years.

You may say we’re still kids, too young and not serious enough, or that we’re not doing it right maybe. But we are doing it our way.

Engineering dream coming true

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A long time ago, on the soil of Europe in heads of many an idea was born – to organize engineering competition. To help their friends and colleagues from technical faculties develop their skills, and use their wide theoretical knowledge they have in practice, for solving simulations of real engineering problems and to prepare better for their future jobs. From 2003 lots of Local BEST Engineering Competitions was conducted in Europe, and the first regional round was organized in Portugal, followed by Spain, Poland, and Belgium.

In 2009 National competitions were brought together, under the name of EBEC, and first Final round took place in Ghent. The rest is history.

Initially, there were four different categories of EBEC, but after a couple of years and feedback, Team Design and Case Study were instated as the official categories of the EBEC pyramid.

Years and years EBEC Project has continued to grow constantly, and nowadays it gathers more than 6500 students every year.

Soon, first NRRs will happen, and in July we’ll meet Europe’s best young engineers in Turin, and until that, local BEST groups are organizing local rounds of competition. This winter, engineers from Aachen, Saint Petersburg, Brussels, Madrid, Copenhagen, Brno, Budapest, designed their future.

Winter is here…So are the first Local rounds.

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When talking about EBEC, it’s necessary to mention that Local Round of EBEC isn’t always a stand alone event. It can also be a to be part of larger and longer event, frequently called Engineering days or Engineering week. This way, Local round is extended by activities for all interested students, not only for participants, like science and job fairs workshops or company presentations.

Extending Local Round of EBEC is an opportunity to get more of a students’ attention and is a good way to more promote the brand of EBEC and work of BEST. Also, companies are interested in taking part in organizing these complementary activities, and getting close to students this way. And on the other side, students participating in these activities are getting to know companies and their interests better.

November is very popular time to organize Local round, and young engineers from Milan, Kiev, Prague, Madrid Carlos III, Turin, Barcelona, Brasov, Iasi, Vinnytsia, Moscow, Rome Tor Vergata, Lviv, Bucharest, Leuven, Louvain-la-Neuve and Sofia showed their knowledge and talents during that month. And in December, knowledge of students form Grenoble, Erlangen, Novi Sad, Nis, Skopje, Naples, Rome, Athens, Thessaloniki, Ankara, Ekaterinburg and Cluj-Napoca will be tested, so stay tuned, because EBEC is back, bigger and more exciting than ever before!

EBEC is back!

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This year, after we accepted the challenge – EBEC is coming back bigger than ever before! Final round of EBEC will be organized in the beautiful city of Turin in August 2019.
The story of EBEC started in 2009, with first Final round organized in Ghent. After many years and cities, in Turin we’ll celebrate big jubilee – Tenth edition of EBEC. As a result of dedication, never-ending inspiration and hard work of organizers, EBEC has become a tradition in Europe.

This project is a true gift from students for students. The best European students will climb to the top of one great pyramid using only their minds. There’s no better place for contestants to improve themselves while testing their knowledge, and  skills they have. EBEC is a hymn to engineering and to youth, which motivated so many people to travel, study harder and apply again, or to join BEST and organize next year’s edition.

The ending of the competition

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We have reached the final day of the competition! It’s the last opportunity for participants to prove their worth to the task partners, Valeo and Honeywell.

It was the second day for the Valeo task for Team Design and participants had to present in front of the jury from the company. The presentations consisted in being able to fit their racks in both hoods of cars with different sizes. They had a few minutes to present their idea and to change between each hood of the car. When the prototype was placed on the hood with the Velodyne LiDAR in it, the jury checked if it was high enough for the hood to not block the laser and also low enough so that it’s resistant to higher speeds.

EBEC Final 2017 Brno

While the presentations were happening in the hall, across from it there were happening the case study presentations. This day, the Case Study task was provided by the European Patent Office and it consisted of participants putting themselves in the role of an interdisciplinary team of inventors and founders of a start-up. This team had to develop ideas about a public transport system/service that would make transportation easier for people that are visually impaired. The solution had to cover the full travel from A to B and it should be safe and balance costs and travel time. Besides from that, the teams needed to find existing technical solutions on Espacenet and know what does it take to use the technology that they find. Participants found EPO’s task useful for their future since they now know how to search for patents and how they can use them.

To see the presentations of the solutions provided by the students for the Case Study and Team Design, go to our youtube page @BESTorganisation.

Author: Carolina Amorim

EBEC Final – printing the future

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“I think all of them are winners because they built something and it works!” said Marie Chaloupková, Chief of Engineering at Y Soft be3D, impressed with the concept of the event. When asked what they think about the partnership with EBEC Final she said “For us is a chance to see the printers in a real environment…”, “We now know how the kids will actually be modeling and how they will be using them.”.

Y Soft supplied 3D printers for the participants to use freely and be able to do even better models by printing certain pieces that they design. The team design topic for the last two days of the competition was provided by Valeo. Participants will have to design a roof rack mount that will be easily mountable by a car passenger and is robust enough to withstand the maximum acceleration of a modern car. The rack will hold the Velodyne LiDAR which is a laser sensor that emits laser rays and receives reflections from objects, such as buildings, other cars, etc.

EBEC Final 2017 Brno

The case study task was powered by Honeywell which consists of being able to understand basics of the heating system design and methods used in Machine Learning or Data Analysis to come up with a solution that is using the data from the sensors. Students liked to create a new heating system to be installed in smart homes in order for the future air conditioning system to be more efficient.

To see the presentations of the solutions provided by the students for the case study, go to our youtube page @BESTorganisation.

Author: Carolina Amorim

Second day of the adventure in Brno

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The adventure continues in Brno for the second day of the competition! Case Study created the idea of a smart home and Team Design built a box transporting vehicle.

Team Design teams got the chance to show what they are worth on the presentations of their task solutions. Each team had two minutes to present their solution and four to make the created vehicle lift three boxes and move them through an obstacle course.
In order to make the task, participants have an EBEC shop and access to 3D printing. All of this provided by Alfun, Isover and Ysoft.

EBEC Final 2017 Brno

When asked what they learned from the task, team Design Boys said “The most important thing that we learned in this challenge was time management. We need to manage our time more efficiently.”. The team was positive, showing their good team spirit!

As for case study, a two-part task was presented by Eaton. In the first part, participants needed to design a smart home based on smartgrids. While the second part had two options, either considering problems of the efficiency of power transmission or identifying energy aggregators for maintaining the grid frequency. The presentations were made at the end of the day leaving the jury impressed with their ideas.

To see the presentations of the teams, go to youtube @BESTorganisation.

Author: Carolina Amorim

The competition has begun!

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The competition for the European Champions of Technology has started! Yesterday was the official first day of the competition, where 120 students gave their best to find solutions for the tasks proposed by the companies.

The case study task was proposed by the city of Brno. It consisted of creating a plan of a sensoric laboratory in the Brno Exhibition Hall. The laboratory would serve to collect different types of data in order to understand the problems of the city and to improve it by making it smart. In the end of the day, the participants’ ideas were presented in front of a jury.

EBEC Final 2017 Brno

The reactions of the participants were positive even with such a time-wise challenging task, saying “…it was very clear what we had to do…” and “…we managed to do it and are satisfied with the results.”.

Skoda proposed the team design task that will have a duration of two days. The proposed task was to create a vehicle capable of lifting 3 boxes from a shelf, moving them through an obstacle course and storing them in another shelf at the end of the course. Today there will be the presentations of solutions that the students came up with.

To see more about the competition, watch the live stream on youtube @BESTorganisation.

Author: Carolina Amorim