From September 16th to 18th, the national finals of the 7th University Students' Engineering Practice and Innovation Competition in 2021, sponsored by the Ministry of Education, was held as scheduled. Hubei University of Automotive Technology（HUAT） has a total of3 teams entering the finals, namely, the heat-driven car event, the potential-driven car event and the virtual simulation intelligent networked car event of the engineering basic track. Participants gave full play to their indomitable spirit, and finally won 1 gold medal, 1 silver medal and 1 bronze medal. Among them, Chen Wei, Wang Wangu and Ma Yan from School of Materials Science and Engineering, under the guidance of Teacher Li Huaijun, won the gold medal in the heat-driven car race. While Liu Rui, Meng Chengcheng, Song Shilong and Liu Yuhao, under the guidance of Teacher Cheng Wen, won the silver medal in the potential-driven car race.
This competition is one of the three major competitions sponsored by Ministry of Education, and which is based on thetheme of "observing morality and respecting labor, striving for excellence through engineering innovation; Serving the society, making the country strong and brave ". Since its inception, it has attracted 66,000 college students from 690 universities and 19,000 teams in 32 provinces, municipalities, autonomous regions and special zones.
Based on the framework of "Engineering Foundation-Discipline Comprehensive Innovation-Interdisciplinary Cross-innovation", the competition is guided by "demand-driven" and "innovative setting of technology application scenarios", closely following the development frontier of national engineering field, incorporating engineering ethics, engineering culture and international elements, covering the fields of basic engineering design, electromechanical integrated system design empowered by artificial intelligence, major equipment design, engineering management and decision-making, digital new media, engineering cultural knowledge, etc. The multi-level education scene from basic engineering literacy to comprehensive innovation ability shows the engineering practice and innovation ability of contemporary college students, and has a wide and positive impact on engineering training education in Chinese universities. There were three tracks and eight events in the finals. After the school-level and provincial-level preliminaries, more than 1,500 students from 205 universities and 427 teams entered the national finals, and there were 26 competition points. The grand occasion was unprecedented and the competition was fierce.
From the preliminaries to the finals, this competition lasted for one year. Instructors and contestants withstood the difficulties and prepared for the competition day and night. Usually, they worked overtime at night and worked hard hand in hand to finally represent Hubei in the national competition. During the preparation process, students used the basic theoretical knowledge of mechanical principles and design, mathematical modeling and programming, three-dimensional design and drawing to solve the problems encountered in the process of parts processing, assembly, on-site debugging, etc., which trained the students' engineering thinking and operational decision-making ability, and improved their practical and innovative ability.
This competition fully demonstrated the students' good engineering innovation consciousness, practical ability and teamwork spirit, provided a training platform for students to solve engineering problems in the future, demonstrated the sense of responsibility and mission of instructors, laid a good foundation for cultivating students' engineering practice and innovation ability, and provided a new teaching model for the new engineering education and teaching reform.
