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Wednesday, 18 May 2016

In a unique hackathon for the mining innovation community, UWA’s Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics (ECM) has secured another two wins at MineHack Perth. Uniting together to deliver the event were Unearthed and BHP Billiton, giving contestants the opportunity to work alongside one of the world’s largest diversified resources companies.

Using Unearthed’s 54-hour long hackathon model, contestants worked with real life data from BHP Billiton’s Western Australia Iron Ore operation in its pursuit of more efficient, effective and safer ways to work.

A UWA Alumni team “Conveyors of Wisdom” took out first prize and also People’s choice award, consisting of Quenten Thomas, Thomas McCleery, Linden Blair, Craig Wale, Ben Colley and Callum Webb.

“Our team created a holistic, real-time conveyor wear measuring platform, designed to deliver a step-change in measurement practices. It would eliminate the need for manual testing, and offer a simple, low-cost hardware solution,” said Callum Webb.

In another exemplary victory, a UWA team won the Young Innovators award for the 3rd year in a row with their project “Clear skies”. The team included Master of Professional Engineering students from Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, a graduate from the System Health Lab, and Professors from the UWA Business School and ECM. The team comprised of Ashwin D’Cruz, Kieran Hannigan, Tom McKeon, Rohan Mehra, Abdul Aziz, Nikola Petranovic, Jade Forlani-Brennan, Alastair Chin, Professor Stijn Masschelein and Professor Melinda Hodkiewicz.

As ‘Operation Clear Skies’, the team created a 10 day dust prediction tool that uses weather data to forecast dust concentrations. With this in hand, the tool also identifies equipment combinations to minimise dust generation for specified wind conditions. This would be available to operators through an easy to use web interface.

Unearthed hosts many prominent hacking events, seeking the finest innovators, entrepreneurs and technology developers to test themselves against challenges from large and diversified global organisations. Hackathons are an opportunity to work with other innovators and collaborators to develop prototype solutions to valuable, sector-wide challenges.

As the resources sector in WA increases overall production, innovation will be vital to improving efficiency and productivity to compete globally and to meet environmental and social responsibilities.

Media references

Lauren Humfrey (UWA Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics) (+61 8) 6488 2260

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