Innovation Gala 2022 - The highlight of the project Product Innovation (PI)

The Innovation Gala was the crowning final event of the  project “Product Innovation” and took place on June 2nd 2022 in person in Schumpeter Laboratory for Innovation as well as via live-stream. This international and interdisciplinary project is a unique course in Austria, inspired by the ME310 program in Design Thinking at the d.school of Stanford University.

According to the concept of experience-based learning, the course offers students the opportunity to work on tasks directly provided by industry partners. In addition, the students receive a project budget of up to € 10,000.

Some of these ideas have already led to new products and even patents. Students develop their knowledge and soft skills further, gain practical experience and get ECTS credits for their studies.

Since 2006 more than 69 projects were conducted with 35 Austrian companies. About 500 students from 57 nations had the possibility to experience this unique course. At this year’s project, six student teams presented their work of the past months. The 39 participating students of this year’s teams worked on challenges from our industry partners Astotec, AVL, OEBB TS, OMV, Palfinger and Payer.

Team Astotec was looking for new applications for pyrotechnic products. They solved the challenge with their final concept D.O.P.E."Drone Overall Protection Equipment". This represents an all-in-one system to protect drones of any kind during and after an engine failure. With an airbag and parachute a slow fall and a soft landing is guaranteed.

Team AVL questioned the safety of fuel cells. During the project, hybrid optical gas formation, pressure rise and depressurization system was developed. The system uses an OGI camera to detect and locate large external leaks, and includes a vacuum hood to perform a pressure rise test to collect information on small external leaks.

The team working on the challenge of OEBB TS was concerned with XR applications for remote detection of rail vehicle condition. This concretized a software and hardware-based solution. The team developed a maintenance app and a modular hardware maintenance system. The terminals have an attachment method that ensures an efficient workflow for inspectors.

Team OMV specialized in corrosion inspection of CO2 during transportation. The team focused on material testing with controlled dosing of impurities. The goal was to develop a functional test facility that provides an ideal humidity of 70%. Challenges included evacuating the air, adding impurities and pressurizing the autoclave with up to 100 bars.

Team Palfinger looked for new lightweight materials. The team placed topology optimization at the center of their challenge. The telescopic JIB made of S1100 sheet steel is the solution favored in the project because the manufacturing process is less expensive than the processes of the other solutions evaluated and leads to a weight reduction of almost 33%.

Team Payer developed a new drive concept for electric personal care products. The team successfully developed a drive concept and demonstrated the advantages of it with regard to the more ergonomic design. The development is currently being evaluated for patentability.

If you want to get insights to the Innovation Gala, just klick on this link (Youtube).