Peking University, May 9, 2014: May 5 witnessed the final showdown of the Second PKU Industrial Design Competition. Zhang Rongfei from Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, PKU stood out from 12 finalists with his project “High-throughput Pathogen Detection Chip” and claimed the Grand Prize.

The competition, co-hosted by PKU Youth League Committee and College of Engineering, was launched in May last year and received 56 submissions involving 169 students from 15 colleges. The topics of the designs covered various fields from R&D, industrial production to everyday life, which demonstrated the innovative spirits, problem solving skills and humanity concerns of PKU students. The preliminary round took place on April 11.

In the final presentation, contestants were given six minutes to introduce their works in terms of design features and application prospects in real-world scenarios and then another three minutes to answer questions from judges. The prototype of “High-throughput Pathogen Detection Chip” caught people’s eyes and became the favorite because of its simplicity, high speed, high precision, high efficiency and low cost. It’s targeted to solve the issue of severe labor and resource waste in current pathogen detection method.

Portable printer and smart shopping system were awarded first prize; smart science-popularization box, personal fitness e-trainer and paperless address book app second prize. In addition, the competition committee awarded eight colleges for excellent organization.

The competition was guided by China Industrial Design Association. In the awarding ceremony, its Executive Vice President Huang Wuxiu said she was impressed to see that PKU students are able to break through the bottleneck of the traditional industrial design practices and demonstrate the modern trend of inter-disciplinary design and new technology application. She expected to see industry and everyday life be further linked together in more fields.

Zhang Dongxiao, Dean of College of Engineering, spoke highly of the significance of the competition. “The competition provides a platform for students to develop creativity, promote innovative thinking and practice hands-on skills.” He hoped this competition can continue at PKU to pass on the innovative spirit and attract more focus and support from across the nation and the whole world to push industrial design even further.

Written by: Cheng Zui
Edited by: Chen Long
Source: PKU News (Chinese)