Despite strike, LAUTECH wins Professor Awojobi design prize

DESPITE the ongoing strike in the institution, a team of students from the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso, has been pronounced first prize winners of the maiden Professor Ayodele Awojobi design competition, according to a statement by the institution’s Public Relations Officer, Mr Lekan Fadeyi.

The competition was organised by the University of Lagos Engineering Society (ULES) in honour of Professor Awojobi, who lectured in the Faculty of Engineering for 18 years until his death in 1984.

From over 100 applications, only 26 teams (including two from LAUTECH) made it to the semifinal of the competition.

“Ultimately, seven teams from five Nigerian universities pitched their designs and inventions to judges at the competition,” Fadeyi stated.

Beating four other universities with its invention of ultrasound reversing guide and micro controller for vehicles, team Mufasa, comprising Olagunju Hammed, Aleshinloye Saheed and Oyewole Babajide, went home with N200,000 prize.

Capable of estimating the distance between a vehicle and any object which is at least four metres away, the device turns on a red light and gives a buzzing sound, once the car gets less than 80 centimetres from any object or another car. This is expected to minimize road accidents.

The panel of judges explained that the LAUTECH team worked hard, showed ingenuity and had a ready prototype to demonstrate for the judges, panel and audience.

Also coming third after team ECO from the University of Lagos, is team PPG (Photo-Plethysmography) from LAUTECH comprising Lawal Teslim Alao and Oyeranmi Sheriff, who were awarded N100,000.

With a design of portable blood pressure and body temperature monitoring system, described as a device which facilitates rapid assessment of patients in acute conditions and emergencies and allows ambulatory self-monitoring, because it does not require a pneumatic cuff, the second team from LAUTECH was singled out for bringing an invention which reduces the stress and discomfort experienced by patients due to cuff inflation.

The monitor is said to require no pre-operational knowledge, is cheap “and transfers readings directly to doctors or patients’ phones, depending on which mobile number is pre-installed on it.”