The winning team:
Nardus Uys and Phillip Marx from Oakdale Agricultural School, Western Cape

From the regional Competitions held in August  2007, eighteen teams were selected for the National Competition, which was held on 22 September 2007 at the Treverton School Mooi River, KZN.

The weekend started on Friday 21 September with teams arriving at the school for registration at 16h00.  Once everyone had enjoyed a meal and recovered from the journey, the team members, educators, facilitators and donors settled down to enjoy an hour of facilitated drumming where everyone had fun beating out a rhythm on the marimbas.  

Saturday proved to be very exciting for the teams. 

The day started with all the teams arriving in white T-shirts, bight orange overalls and yellow hard hats donated by Murray & Roberts.  Then the hard work began with interviews, judging of the cranes and the reports.  Lunch gave everyone a chance to calm the nerves and then a surprise workshop tested their skills they had gained during the year. 

The day ended with the awards dinner for team members, educators, facilitators, invited guests and donors.  After dinner Chris Swanepoel, from Liebherr, gave the teams a greater insight on cranes, then the teams received their certificates and medallions and the winning teams were announced. 

The winning team, Nardus Uys and Phillip Marx from Oakdale Agricultural School, Western Cape received first year engineering bursary at participating Universities,  an overseas trip focused on visiting various engineering companies, as well as AutoCAD Inventor software. 

Report back on the 2007 winners trip 

On Saturday 24 November Phillip Marx and Nardus Uys, along with their educator left for their exciting trip to the UK to visit engineering companies.  

The team arrived on Sunday 25 November and made their way to Tower Hill where they were met by Barbara Friend, one of the SAIMechE Technology Olympiad Directors.  She spent the day with them filling them in on information about the country and showing them around the “real London”.  Then after a long journey up to Derby the team prepared themselves for a very busy week ahead.  This is what they said about the trip:

Monday 26 November – Rolls Royce

Phillip: I have seen aircrafts flying, but I did not have an idea of the thousands of components of the power source of an aircraft.  I think I will be up to becoming a mechanical engineer – much later in life. 

Nardus: To actually see how much they do to keep clients and workers happy was great.  The refurbishment centre was an eye opener to the seriousness of overhauling engines that are used on airbuses.  It was not only the big engines that amazed me but how they work to get them there, new technologies were designed, new principles used and really interesting welding techniques used.  I could actually see the roll of an engineer in practice and what they do.  One thing that grabbed me was how an engineer developed a grinding disk that increased production by doing everything wrong according to the textbooks.  That just showed me that sometimes to do something big, you actually have to do wrong according to people and books to be a real good designer.  

Tuesday 27 November - Bombardier

Phillip: The refurbishing and refurnishing section was very informative and the many insights we gained will certainly keep our minds busy.  We also felt privileged to be one of the few people who have seen the passenger coach/saloon (in the building phase) of the Guatrain trains which will shortly run on the rails of the Gauteng Province in the RSA. 

Nardus: For me Bombardier is a company who kept thinking of how to stay in business by refurbishment of trains and also creating what they call “flat packs” that can be put together in another country, in other words creating a bigger business opportunity world wide. The Gautrein project was also rolling and was great to be some of the first South Africans to see this train on production line.  What was also great was that they looked at a problem and then get an answer by creating business. 

Wednesday 27 November - SEIC, Loughborough University

Phillip: Time did not allow us to get an insight in the courses of study or curriculum at the university but from what we have seen from the outside we were proud of the facilities of our school in compassion with that of a university on another country, subjective as the comparison may be. 

Nardus: We saw what other universities overseas looked like and it taught me that by being an engineer you have to be able to work with other people and have good business skills.  I started to wonder if I shouldn’t be studying Mechanical engineering over a few years 

Thursday 28 November - BAE Systems
Phillip: This was very, very informative.  The mounting/building of different aircrafts and their purposes are more than full of conceit.  What a pity that mankind still has to go this far to be able to defend or attack.  It is however clear that the technology serves civil life. 

Nardus: I really felt like a VIP at this company! In addition, we saw sunshine in Preston! To get a picture of what they do at this company and how they get to work with over 140 000 employees was mind blowing.  They have to work together with other companies and exports to other countries, including RSA.  This just showed me that a company must have good business relationships to make a big success.  

IMechE:

Phillip: I wish my vocabulary and space permits to say more than to thank Joanna, Maria, Nadine, Colin and Gillian for their excellent work and for the great, great value, which accrued to us and previous winners.  How will we ever be able to compensate.

The visit to the Science museum was very interesting.  As boys will be doing we very much enjoyed the ancient artefacts, but we would have loved to have longer time to get some more information on the long history of the UK and its contribution to the world of science.

Nardus: It was good to meet the people of IMECE and when Nadine took us to the science museum, I really got excited!  The science museum was fantastic! Unfortunately, you have to be there for a minimum of one day to quickly run through everything.  However, what we saw was fantastic and interesting to see what engineers and pioneers did for technology to develop.  It amazed me to think how that people could have done that. 

General:

Phillip: I think the purpose of the tour was met in full.  Visits to the different places open a world, which was completely unknown to me.  I really need more time to evaluate this bigger world, which I have seen.  I was exposed to this bigger world in a foreign country, strange and in terms of words and fashion, exotic.  I am simply not able to choose between the outstanding events, as everything seems to be outstanding.  Impressive is impressive.  Technology is the thing I am interested in but after this mind-boggling experience, I have to make a lot of mind shifts.  I can do nothing but to evaluate all the visits as outstanding.

We have seen a wide variety of detail of the world of technology and the information on technology in practice in the world, will keep our minds busy for years to come.  In many senses, the tour has changed our lives.  I cannot refrain from mentioning my sense of shame, considering the magnitude of our gain in comparison with our input!   

Nardus: This was amazing to walk past places like houses of parliament, Big Ben, Trafalgar square, Piccadilly Circus, and Leicester square, going on and on!  Tower bridge was really a showpiece of can we say ancient engineering? It was really precious to walk on that bridge and see how it works, the steam engines the principles it was built on and to see how it fits its purpose.  I loved it. 

This was only a short overview of what the trip really meant to me. It could not be repaid in money nor described in words.  Thanks a lot from the bottom of my heart