Achievements

Thanks to the high appraisal of the jury for their project “Unified Sensor System”, Le Dinh Nhat Khanh’s team outstandingly won the CDIO Academy 2017 Winner Cup at the 2017 CDIO Academy Competition held at the University of Calgary in Canada from June 18 to 21. 

Thirty undergraduate, graduate, and PhD students from universities and technical institutions in fifteen countries (Canada, Vietnam, Russia, Japan, China, Sweden, Taiwan and others) attended the event. The Vietnamese team had five members: Le Dinh Nhat Khanh, Tran Hoang Phuoc Nguyen (K20CMUTPM), Nguyen Hong Tieu Minh (K22UIUQTH) and Le Nhat Hung (K21UIUTPM) from Duy Tan University and Nguyen Thi Ngoc Anh from the University of Foreign Languages of the University of Danang. After arriving in Canada, students were not allowed to work with their home support teams; instead they were divided into groups of students from different institutions. Le Dinh Nhat Khanh joined a team with two members from Taiwan, one from Russia, and one from Canada. They named their team Jet Lagged. 

 

DTU representatives and the champions at the Danang International Airport

The objective of this year’s competition was to find creative and durable solutions in automation, anticipating possible issues and proposing solutions. “What is the biggest challenge facing autonomous vehicles, and what could be a solution?” was the question being asked at the 2017 CDIO Academy.

In only four days, the teams had to identify their strengths, create a team, formulate ideas, develop solutions and prepare a presentation with a prototype for the jury. With his in-depth knowledge of software engineering, Le Dinh Nhat Khanh needed only one day to create a demo version of the software program incorporating all the details of their team project. Khanh also took credit for the team’s presentation to the jury, thanks to his fluent English presentation skills. The prototype that Le Dinh Nhat Khanh developed set the path to the highest prize of this year’s contest. The “Unified sensor system” project won the 2017 CDIO Academy Cup.

 

The Bears Autonomous Vehicles team with student Nguyen Thi Ngoc Anh of the Danang University of Foreign Languages obtained a silver medal.  

According to Le Dinh Nhat Khanh, his team’s project was highly appraised due to its striking features such as fuel saving, reduction of accidents, convenient support for traffic systems, ability to synchronize information between autonomous vehicles, and reduction of the developing cost of autonomous vehicles - besides an impressive group presentation. “The contest gave us experience, improved our team-work skills, taught us how to apply CDIO and SUIT to team-work and how to resolve disagreements, and introduced us to autonomous vehicles technology and artificial intelligence. It was an extremely valuable experience. As a DTU student, I am so proud of being provided with this opportunity to participate and win the highest prize in the 2017 CDIO Academy Competition. I hope DTU will provide its students with more useful playgrounds in the near future,” Khanh said. 

Dr. Tran Nhat Tan, Director of the DTU Center of Quality Assurance and Testing, guided the students participating in CDIO Academy 2017. He said: “In recent years, DTU students have gained many big prizes at national and international competitions which prove their qualifications, spirit, and maturity at international integration. I believe that the prizes DTU students won at the CDIO Academy 2017 and in previous years (the 2013 CDIO Winner Cup, with first and second prizes from the CDIO Academy, held at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute Technology in the USA; sharing the Cup with four other students from Singapore Polytechnic at the CDIO Academy 2016 in Finland) will motivate and encourage applied science and technology research among DTU students in the near future. The achievements also affirm the effectiveness of the advanced training models DTU has been adopting over the years.”

The CDIO Initiative was formed by US and Swedish universities in 2000. The CDIO Initiative is an educational framework stressing engineering fundamentals set in the context of conceiving, designing, implementing and operating real-world systems and products. It now counts 120 member universities from all over the world. DTU was the second Vietnamese university to participate in the CDIO Initiative. The first was the National University in HCMC.