Achievements

After sharing the Winner Cup with four other champions in the 2016 CDIO Academy in Finland, DTU students again participated in the 2017 competition and shared the Cup with champions of the CDIO Academy 2017 who came from Taiwan, Russia, and Canada.

 

The 13th International CDIO Annual Conference took place at the University of Calgary in Canada from June 18 to 21 with the participation of 249 managers, experts, engineers, lecturers and students from renowned technical institutions in 36 countries all over the world.

DTU was the second Vietnamese university to participate in the CDIO Initiative in 2012. The first was the National University in HCMC. This year, the DTU delegation led by Dr. Le Nguyen Bao, DTU Vice-Provost, made significant contributions to the success of the event. “Engineering Education in the Digital Age” was the theme of this year’s conference. 102 papers were sent to the Board of Organizers. Of 7 papers by Vietnamese universities, DTU contributed 5.

Undergraduate engineering students from universities and technical institutions in fifteen countries attended the event. The DTU delegation had four students: Le Dinh Nhat Khanh, Tran Hoang Phuoc Nguyen (K20CMUTPM), Nguyen Hong Tieu Minh (K22UIUQTH) and Le Nhat Hung (K21UIUTPM); in addition, DTU sponsored Nguyen Thi Ngoc Anh from the University of Foreign Languages of the University of Danang to participate in the event, which was the award she won at the Annual Social Venture Plan DTU holds for students in central Vietnam.

 

“What is the biggest challenge facing autonomous vehicles, and what could be a solution?” was the question being asked at the 2017 CDIO Academy.

Two months before coming to Canada to compete with each other, participating engineering students had to fulfill six tasks online to show their understanding of the competition’s theme, such as technology, morality, legal framework and social impacts. 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. 

 

In only four days, the teams had to identify their strengths, formulate ideas, develop solutions and prepare a presentation with a prototype for the jury in three rounds. By teaming up students from all over the world, engineering students were challenged to demonstrate their adaptability of working in an international environment and the communication skills that the CDIO model focuses on. 

The "Unified sensor system" project by Le Dinh Nhat Khanh together with two members from Taiwan, one from Russia, and one from Canada won the hearts of the jury 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 “Unified sensor system” project won the 2017 CDIO Academy Cup. Besides, the Bears Autonomous Vehicles team with student Nguyen Thi Ngoc Anh of the Danang University of Foreign Languages obtained a silver medal.  

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 international competitions such as IDEERS, Go Green City, Microsoft Imagine Cup and so on, which prove their qualifications, spirit, and maturity at international integration. 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.”

Le Dinh Nhat Khanh said: “The contest has allowed my friends and me to experience an international work environment, to use the principles of multicultural teamwork, our skills at solving technical problems, and meet the challenge of applying the CDIO and SUIT (share, understand, integrate, team decision) to our work. I am very happy and proud to be a DTU student, and I am grateful to DTU as it has given my friends and me the very opportunity to participate in the competition and achieve success. To me, whether schools are public or private is but a label; what is important are the resolve and the right investment that will allow all to set down the desired achievements. Start today at a university with potential, with passion, and that always reforms itself to increase its resolve and its spirit to reach new heights in the future.”