KEBO, Vladimir
VSB-TU Ostrava, Institute of Economics and Control Systems, 17. listopadu 15, OSTRAVA-Poruba, 708 33, Czech Republic, vladimir.kebo@vsb.cz
Abstract: We have organised an international competition of students’ research projects to support the motivation and activity of students to research work. In this contribution you will find the history and experience from organising of ”Creative and scientific activities of students” in the field of automation and control theory application, on the board of VSB – Technical University of Ostrava. Besides the organisation there is the necessity of co-operation with industry, firms specialised to automation. The base of organising team comes from two institutes of VSB – Technical University of Ostrava, the Institute of Economics and Control Systems (Faculty of Mining and Geology) and the Department of Control Systems and Instrumentation (Faculty of Mechanical Engineering). We do use our more than 15 years organising experience of students research competitions. The specialisation of organising institutes and co-operated firms determines the orientation of the competition. For last years, we organise it in four sessions:
We see this competition as very a good tool for students personal research development and preparation for their thesis processing and defending. Next important consequence is the advertising of our university and study branches, as we organise a session of secondary and high schools too. But what is the most important? It is the excellent reflection of successful student in industry and firms, which participate in our organisation as the sponsors and members of juries. The students have obtained skills of teamwork and are able to individually solve technical problems. The success of students in the competition is the best advertising of students’ qualities, the straightest way to find a good job.
Keywords: research, students, competition, sponsors, experience
A part of positive educational heritage from the time before the velvet revolution in Czech Republic is the tradition of technical university students’ scientific competitions. It was organised through students youth union with full support of faculty and university authorities. The structure of sessions was similar to the structure of study branches. A few ”familiar” branches of study created a session. There were a few levels of competition, from a faculty up to the national and international level. For the organising there were special teams of pedagogues and students. They prepared and announced themes for next year of students research work and provided good support for successful results and defending of students projects. After the political changes in our republic (velvet revolution) there was a break of the tradition.
The question was how to organise a new generation of such a competition, as there was a resistance against everything old. The very first step was to find some relevant firms, as we supposed the necessity of co-operation with industry, the necessity of financial support. We have had good contacts to company SPEL, distributor of Allen-Bradley automation products. We used some of A-B PLC controllers (type SLC-500) in our laboratories. The headquarters in USA decided in the year 1994 to provide some Universities and high schools in Czech Republic a few sets of automation products – PLC controller with complete of programming tools and good set of I/O modules and a smart AC drive controller. More than 30 education institutions in Czech Republic obtained in the year 1995 this ”Automation set”, that have provided a platform for session ”Application of PLC controllers Allen-Bradley”. Next important part of industrial automation is the supervision of technological processes. There is a few control and monitoring systems well known all over the world. One of the best SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) systems is InTouch, a product of Wonderware. The co-operation with Wonderware local distributor for the Czech Republic - PANTEK (CS) enabled next session: ”The visualisation and control of laboratory experiments”. So we decided to announce the firs year of ”Creative and research activities of students” in two above mentioned sessions. The first sponsors (SPEL, PANTEK) provided us the lists of addresses of universities and secondary and high schools, where were distributed their automation products. Very important for next success was the gift of sponsors – financial prices for student and automation products for the training schools of winner and appreciated projects. This prices attracted the competition, as their financial value was about 500.000,- Czech crowns. In the year 1996, after about two years of preparation we did the first step towards the new tradition of students research competition.
We would like to provide a simple set of instructions, that can answer the question, what are the steps for organisation of students’ competition. It seems to be similar to organise an international student’s conference. As I notice above we organise the competition in the field of automation, control and informatics. According the interest of universities, schools and students the competition is now organised in four sessions as a part of generally ” Creative and research activities of students”.
Sessions :
Regarding to organisation first of all we have to minimise the expenses of all participants – students, jury members, schools and organisers. For this purpose the programme of competition is announced only for one day. The participants from large distance (in CR some hundreds of kilometres) can book accommodation on our university halls of residence for the night before the competition. First step is the negotiation with sponsors about their participation and the form of prices - products for the training schools. Next step is creation and sending of the announcement of the competition to all possible participants, technical universities, high schools and secondary schools. This step we do about four moths before the date of competition. Then is necessary to book the rooms, to design the diplomas, to prepare the responsible people for each activity (accommodation, refreshments, lunches, coffee breaks, ... ), to discuss the contributions for sponsors presentations, to ask faculty and university authorities for participation, to choose and address the members of juries for each session and many of next small but important works. Important step is the preparation and publishing of proceedings of students projects abstracts. We try to maximally use electronic ways of all activities – database of participants, addressing by e-mail, DTP of abstracts proceedings, etc.
As I mentioned above, the competition is organised as one-day students’ conference. The date of the conference used to be in springtime in April - May, before the end of semester. The day before is necessary arrange all sessions rooms, paste information announcements, signs and orientation arrows. The time schedule should be like next:
The official opening is organised on a plenary session of all participants. The chairman (main organiser) asks the university and faculty authorities for a speech, introduces the juries of each session and then informs the session about program and time schedule of competition.
Chairmen of juries direct the competition in sessions. After defending of all students’ projects, there is the jury negotiation and discussion of results and order of first three students’ projects. The results have to be immediately passed on for the main jury and diploma-printing workshop.
After lunch there is the space for main jury negotiation during the seminary of sponsors. The seminary (a plenary session) provides to the sponsors a space to present last advantages of their products. For the university pedagogues there is a space to exchange experience regarding students’ activities organisation, experience of laboratory experiments and solving of different laboratory tasks suitable for education process.
The ceremony of results announcement is the festive top of the competition. The main organiser announces the results, university authorities pass on the diplomas and sponsors pass on the financial prices to students and automation tools to training institutes. For the end there is the announcement of next students competition.
The students’ competition has begun a part of study program in last years of study (the study branch: Automation and computers in raw material industry). In the frame of course project, students defend a part of their thesis within the competition. Our aim is to create some small teams of students from different years of study. There is a small team, which has to work together with the necessity of individual problems solving, processing of experimental results and scientific results presentation. We see this as one of the most useful ways, how to prepare our students for their thesis elaboration and final defense. The students are attracting by financial prices, the schools and universities are attracted by automation products provided by the sponsors.
We have got four years experience of organising of the ”Creative and scientific activities of students” within the frame of special competition.
In the first year of the competition -1996- there were only two sessions. The participants were from 8 institutions from the whole Czech Republic, together 23 students with 17 projects. The first session ”Application of PLC controllers Allen-Bradley” had two categories. In the category of high and secondary schools there were 4 students’ projects and 7 participants, in the category of universities there were 6 students’ projects and 8 participants. In the second session ”The visualisation and control of laboratory experiments” there were 7 students’ projects and 8 participants.
In the second year of the competition (1997) we decided to arrange 4 sessions (description - chapter 2). The participants were from 10 institutions from the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic, 32 students with 29 projects. In the first session, there were 6 students with 6 projects. In the second session there were 6 students with 6 projects. In the third session there were 7 students with 7 projects and in the fourth session there were 8 students with 7 projects from universities and 5 students with 3 projects from high and secondary schools. In the category of high and secondary schools there were only 3 projects, so we decided announce this category generally for all sessions (not only for session 4 - ”Application of PLC controllers”).
In the third year of the competition (1998) we arrange 4 sessions like the year before. The participants were from 9 institutions from the Czech Republic, 47 students with 42 projects. In the first session, there were 10 students with 8 projects. In the second session there were 11 students with 11 projects. In the third session there were 9 students with 8 projects and in the fourth session there were 8 students with 8 projects. In the session of high and secondary schools there were 6 students with 4 projects. We can see the trend to individual s, as there were only a few students’ teams in the competition.
This year we organised the fourth year of the competition with the same session structure like last year. The participants were from 7 institutions from the Czech Republic, 33 students with 32 projects. In first session, there were 10 students with 9 projects. In the second session there were 9 students with 8 projects. In the third session there were 9 students with 8 projects and in the fourth session there were 5 students with 5 projects. In the session of high and secondary schools there were 4 students with 2 projects. Almost all projects were individual, only 3 projects were done by students’ team.
I think we arranged new positive tradition of students research competition the board of VSB – Technical University of Ostrava.
The competition of students research projects has very good influence to students’ ability to utilise new theories and knowledge and to compare the level of education on universities through the whole Czech Republic. There are special juries of experienced pedagogues, that evaluate the student contributions, the defence of their projects and do the comparison of all projects in specific sessions. The competition provides excellent platform for exchange of pedagogic experience, comparison of scientific results, new hypothesis and theories.
The seminary of sponsors is a good platform for presentation of up to date automation tools. We have tried to organise new generation of such students competition on full voluntary principle and under support of world leading firms on the field of automation and process control with utilisation of latest HW and SW tools and systems.
The success of the students research competition depends on the activity of a few excellent pedagogues of our Technical University. For the very end I would like to express my thanks to them for their effort, namely to:
Prof. Ing. Vladimir Strakos, DrSc,
Dr. RNDr. Lubomir Smutny,
Ing. Radim Farana, CSc.
KEBO, V. Proceedings of annotations of the ”Creative and research activities ‘96”, VSB TU Ostrava 1996
FARANA, R., KEBO,V., SMUTNY, L. Proceedings of annotations of the ”Creative and research activities ‘97”, VSB TU Ostrava 1997
FARANA,R., KEBO,V., SMUTNY, L. Proceedings of annotations of the ”Creative and research activities ‘98”, VSB TU Ostrava 1998
SMUTNY, L., FARANA, R., KOCI, P. & KEBO,V., Proceedings of annotations of the ”Creative and research activities ‘99”, VSB TU Ostrava 1999