2010 : 2011Annual Report

Local BEST Group CopenhagenThe Technical University of Denmark

COPENHAGEN

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Contents

3 Word from the Presidents

5 Didn’t see it coming - A participants story

7 BEST Summer Course 2010

9 BEST spirit - that’s what it’s all about!

11 Guide: How to apply to a BEST course?!

13 Where to go: List of Summer Courses 2011

15 Who are we?

17 Local BEST Engineering Competition

19 nordBEC - The Nordic engineering competition

21 The presidents are meeting in Copenhagen

COPENHAGEN

03

Word from The President

Lasse Kor�President,BEST Copenhagen

The world today set high demands for young engineers getting out of the education system. We have to be experts in our field of study and at the same time master management as well as social skills.

When politicians want to solve the future problems, they look in the direc-tion of engineers to bring forth new innovative solutions. It is the vision of Barack Obama and other world leaders not to economize on the welfare to get out of the financial stagnation, but instead to grow out of the crisis through innovation and making the society more efficient. A very large part of the future burden is for sure put on the shoulders of the young engine-ering talents that are produced here at DTU and many other places.

It is the vision of BEST to use the diversity between cultures to create even greater outcomes than one could achieve by his or her own. This is done through friendship and networking across huge distances. Friendships

which are created on the many events that the large amount of volunteers of BEST arrange through the year. The friendships get you to understand new cultures and ways of thinking that will no doubt help you in the future globalized world.BEST is a platform for creativity and experimenting when it comes to management skills. We get hands-on experience on how to manage huge events, we have fun and get new friends across the whole of Europe while doing so. Also one of the main contents of BEST is to have extracurri-cular technical courses, where students are able to challenge themselves in fields they find intere-sting.

Looking back on the year here in the BEST group Copenhagen we have had a very successful summer course with happy participants, where several of them are now considering to return to take a part of their studies at DTU. We have helped our friends and partner group in Aalborg to get back on their feet, which has resulted in a group, which we find to be one of the strongest in the Nordic Region of BEST. We have in corporation with Maersk, Studenterhuset in Copenhagen and Microsoft Development Center Copenhagen arranged a local engineering competition in November 2010, which succeeded with very satisfied companies and participants. We congratu-late the winners and wish them good luck in the next round in Trondheim this spring.This year we are in Copenhagen ready to face two big challenges that we have put on our shoul-ders: First the CDIO conference in June, where we will organize an engineering competition for the participating students and professors and later the president’s meeting in November, where we will gather the whole of BEST in the heart of DTU. We hope that these two events will bring us in an even closer relation with DTU.

Finally we thank our sponsors and partners throughout the year and we hope that we can improve our co-operation even further in order to create an even stronger bond between BEST, the universities and the partners of BEST.

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Word from the President of DTU

In 2011, the Copenhagen branch of BEST celebrates 20 successful years of organizing major international events and connecting Danish students to a network of European engineers. Foun-ded in 1989, BEST, Board of European Students of Technology consists of 89 local groups in 30 countries where dedicated students are involved in organizing case studies, competitions, excur-sions, exchange possibilities, and career opportunities in an ever-growing network of young and innovative students – an impressive achievement for a non-profit and non-political organization for students of science and technology

Students, who participate in the hundreds of BEST events around Europe, learn to communicate across boundaries and establish cross-cultural networks of lasting personal and professional significance while promoting scientific progress and building up their technological skills and com-petences.

This international dimension is of vital importance for DTU. As one of Europe’s top technical universities, DTU believes that internationalization is both a natural component of – and a pre-condition for – excellence in technical development. Through internationally acknowledged research, through student exchange with top universities worldwide, and through our participa-tion in alliances with leading science centers and industry, DTU embodies the vision that cross-cultural respect and understanding contributes to the use of technology for social benefit – a vision apparently shared by all BEST students.

Lars Pallesen,President of DTU

05Didn’t see it coming

”So how can this possibly be any special?” I thought to myself. I was thinking of my previous interna-tional experiences: Living a year abroad in France, having a bilingual diploma from secondary school and more than a handful of different camps – the latest one I had even organized 50 kids plus 20 leaders coming to Denmark for four weeks! Yep – I thought I knew it all and since I did not start to write the application until 50 minutes before the deadline I had not given the BEST Summer Course much consideration until I sat in the bus going to Tampere, Finland... ”How can these two weeks be any special?”

Today, looking back, I have no problem answering that question. Actually it happened gradually. I showed up at the camp-site one day in advance, which gave me time to meet the organizers and get to know the BEST-atmosphere, and I started getting a feeling of what I had signed up for. We where all invited to go clubbing that night, but we were all tired after travelling and decided to stay in, which was not as calm as expected. Though no dancing we spent time talking and listening to music and among other songs we heard a full 25 minutes loop of “Amazing Horse” - truly amazing!

And then the real action started! The next day, the rest of the participants arrived and with nothing planned until the evening we had to start mingling on our own. Therefore, when we finally started the name games I had already taken the first group picture during an improvised excursion to a nearby lake.We did not have to wait long for the parties either: I guess it is normal to have a (somewhat) calm first night but that was also my very last chance to get some proper sleep. The following day we started the schedule that was going to exhaust us of all our energy: Six hours of intensive and inter-esting lectures, a handful of hours with cultural events and then the energy draining pre-partying, partying and finally after-partying. A couple of hours to eat, shower and change clothes now and then but no time to slack off!

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BEST is definitely something extraordinary and mainly because of the

amazing people”“

The bright summer here in Northern Europe is perfect for staying up late into the night and this made even the parties special: They ranged from the classical Red-Yellow-Green-relationship status theme to the very formal Sit-Sit. I greeted the early rising Finnish summer sun at a cottage in the middle of the woods, Friday 13th dressed as a werewolf and eating “Flødeboller” after the famous International Evening, where each country presented itself to the rest of the summer course.It was special all right, and I have even learned a thing or two meanwhile: I have learned to smile the Nordic way. I've learned to row a Viking boat, which helped build a team spirit and group feeling, which made me proud to be out of a Scandinavian heri-tage. I've learned (and told) many jokes about Swedes, which the Finns find just as funny as the Danes. And despite some diffi-culty I learned a few Finnish words like “hirvea krapula”, “perkele” and “kiitos”.

To be fair, it was not all fun and games and I must admit that I could bring something back from the lectures as well. The theme was “User Experience and Cross-cultural design” and neglecting the aca-demic part of my Summer Course would not be doing BEST just. I am studying Design & Innovation so the “user experience” and “design” part was not all new to me and looking at my studies in an interna-tional perspective and to compare them to my home university was very interesting! It appears that DTU have a broader scope on the design engineering compared to the Finns strong passion for mobile phones – which is not so surprising considering the name of a village about 15 km outside of Tampere: “Nokia”... Furthermore, being on international environment was the perfect opportunity to actively reflect and research the second theme. The “Cross-cultural” aspect and to be able to put my non-formal experi-ences and training into an academic framework and reflect upon it in an university-setting was in hind-sight alone enough reason to make the trip across our Nordic region.

As you can gather I was proven wrong. The BEST summer course was surely a memorable thing. How-ever, the biggest learning might have been the one about the organization itself. I have done school exchanges, participated at numerous camps, been introduced to a dozen international organization, spent many of my summers abroad and gotten to know many different people from different countries and cultures. BEST did without a doubt win a special place in my heart. To me BEST is a group of young and open-minded people with lots of energy, with an interest in your person and a desire to have fun, which at the same time provides a multi-cultural foundation giving you a new perspective on what you thought as trivial.

BEST is definitely something extraordinary and mainly because of the amazing people: On my way home I spent a couple of days in Helsinki and went to the airport at 4 o'clock in the morning just to say goodbye to one of the other participants who was leaving. In the bus back to Hel-sinki I thought: “I was so wrong. This was very special”.

Kristian Ott MilboDTU student, and now a BEST member

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The Fast and the Furious - Goes Green

grid and fuel cells. It also included a lecture and discussion session by the president of the Danish committee of electri-cal vehicles Per Møller, and a company visit at Topsøe Fuel Cell where the production process of fuel cells could be closely studied. In every BEST course it is a goal that the academic schedule should be both varied, challenging and fun to be a part of for the students. To achieve that and to experience what an electrical car could also look like, a field trip to the showroom of Tesla Motors was a part of the schedule. Here the students could experience the world fastest electrical powered car – The Tesla Roadster. The concept of Tesla motors was pre-sented by the Sales and Marketing Director of Tesla Denmark Esben Pedersen, and three lucky students was even taken for a drive in the sports car.

In the summer of 2010, after eight months of planning, BEST Copenhagen held the 14th edition of the annual summer course. For the third year in a row the course ranked among the top five courses measured in number of applications. In fact out of a total of 56 courses all over Europe, Copenhagen took second place!

Following the trend of the political debate at the COP15 climate summit in Copenhagen 2009 and also the trend set by the group by focusing the 2009 summer course on wind energy, the topic of the course was chosen to be the future aspects of environmentally friendly transportation. Espe-cially focus was put on electrical and hydrogen powered vehicles. The number of applications for the course that where received clearly indicated that the course topic was well chosen and the following evaluations did so as well.

The academic schedule was arranged in co-operation with Esben Larsen from DTU Electro, and included lectures on the environmental impact of transportation, electrical energy systems, smart

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In line with the overall topic of the course, this year we introduced a new concept for transportation during the course - Bikes! The broad bike paths and the number of bikes always surprise foreigners in Denmark, especially in the Copenhagen area, and this year the partici-pants could experience the biking culture themselves on trips around the surroundings of the univer-sity campus.

A BEST summer course is not only academics, it also include social activities, sightseeing and a chance for the participants to get acquainted with both the Danish culture and the culture of the other participants. The participants explored the sights of Copenhagen on the traditional BEST city rally including the canal boat tours and Tivoli with a free pass to all the rides. Even canoeing was a part of the program and Danish culture and history marked the evenings though a “Viking” barbeque and a traditional Danish Christmas dinner, including Snaps, Herring and a parcel dice game.

Summer course in Copenhagen gave me unforgettable moments, friends for life time and chance to visit one of the most green and beautiful cities of Europe”

It is amazing what can happen when 25 young people from 20 different countries from all over Europe and even countries like India and Brazil is brought together for two intensive weeks. Even though everyone arrived as strangers to each other, they left with new friends and unforgettable moments to remember. The international evening where everyone shared their local cuisine and drinks was a very tangible example of how the participants shared their own culture with the other, but cultural exchange and bonding across the borders was happening all through the course. In the end we believe that everyone left the course with a good feeling and memories for a lifetime.

The end of the summer course concluded eight months of dedicated work, and from an organizatio-nal perspective arranging such an event is a very demanding. It took a lot of hard work not only from us as the two main organizers, but from the entire Copenhagen BEST group and our four great co-organizers. In the end all the hard work does pay off in so many levels. Because of valuable experience helpful in growing both professionally and perso-nally, but also the value of giving others an opportunity to experience what BEST is all about and get to know them at the same time.

Jonas Deckers Poulsen & Ankit Khandelwal

Main OrganizersSummerCourse’10

“

09 Letter from a participant

BEST spirit-that’s what it’s all about!

Having the chance to be a part of something like a BEST Summer Course means having the chance to open your mind and start thinking globally! It’s your chance to develop your soft skills, your people skills, your knowledge and your ability to last through a rather long period of time with almost no sleep at all. It’s a chance you have to take! Because it can change your life forever - I know it did that for me.

To be honest, I did not know what to expect when I found out that I was selected as one of the 25 participants for Copenhagen’s 2010 Summer Course “The Fast and Furious - Goes Green!”. After I’ve received my acceptance notice I started to build up this image in my mind of how it was going to be. I thought about the fact that I was going to visit Copenhagen, that I was going to meet students from all over Europe and that I would get the chance to learn new and inter-esting things about the topic of the course, but this image had the same accuracy as the description of a color made by a blind man.

I did not just “visit” a city - I learned about the Danish culture. As a participant, I had the chance to visit the city during the “City Rally”, which was something like a scavenger hunt: the partici-pants were divided in teams and along with the organizers and co-organizers were supposed to try to find and visit as many historical monuments and touristic places in Copenhagen as pos-sible. Not only that, by doing this, we learned a lot about the city but we also got to do different interesting and crazy tasks which resulted in us having lots of fun and a lot of memories from that day.

The academic part of the course also exceeded all of my expectations! I loved listening to the lectures and I’ve learned a lot about alternative energy sources and transportation. During our two week stay in Copenhagen we had lectures during the mornings (almost every morning) and we also had time to work on our projects that were due at the end of the course.

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Rafaela VoiculescuBucharest, Romania

To emphasize the importance of green transportation, our wonderful organizers gave us the opportunity to use bikes as our main means of transportation. This turned out to be a great experience and even if our first trip from the sleeping lodge where we were staying at to DTU lasted for almost an hour, we (the ones that were in the “slow biking group”) managed to improve our time during our two weeks there. We all had a lot of fun during our bike trips to the beach and to the Open Air Museum. Seeing as the main idea was to take a look into the future and see how our world would be when oil won’t be an option, I’d say that this course reached its goal in making us realize just how the future car could look like. And we liked what we found

Besides from its topic, the thing that made me apply for a BEST course was the possibility of meeting students from different countries and getting to know more about their culture and tradition. I have to say that my main concern was that, maybe because we were all coming from various countries, we would have problems in getting along. But this was totally not the case! I had the pleasure of meeting wonderful people from all over Europe and I am now honored to call them friends. One can’t understand the bounds that form during such an event unless they are there. We’ve “endured” parties that kept us up all night, we’ve learned to bike together, we’ve participated in an International Evening where everyone shared a little more about their country’s traditions, we’ve run around Copenhagen together, we’ve eaten at the same table and we have sat next to each other during lectures, we’ve played games, we’ve laughed together and also we felt sad when the time for us to part came. We’ve been a family for two weeks and we’ll be friends forever! And for this we have to thank everyone from BEST Copenhagen because they made this happen.

What can I say now? Well... During my stay in Copenhagen I had the opportunity to understand what “BEST spirit” means. It’s passion and positive attitude, it’s work and self-development, it’s people and friendship. That’s what it’s all about! And that’s why after I came back home I’ve joined my local BEST group and I’m doing my BEST to spread this wonderful spirit.

I had the pleasure of meeting wonderful people from all over Europe and I am now honored to call them friends!“

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How to Apply!End of the semester, no more exams, no more reports, no more lectures, and time to think about the summer. There are many options; first of all being at home for whole summer, in your own country, where you have spent all your life, doing the same things that you have done until now… otherwise you can spend a lot of money, and arrange a trip abroad for few days or there’s the BEST third option…

What do you think about meeting people from more than 30 different countries? What about learning while having fun? What if it is possible to enrich your studying in the university while learning new things about energy, sustainable development and energy efficiency and at the same time having simply the BEST time in Zagreb. What do you think about improving your food skills to ensure a healthy lifestyle while knowing a bit more about ancient traditions of the Vikings in Lund, walking their dark and scary forests or their long sandy beaches? Does it sound better learning which material is the BEST for building structures in Brno? And doing a trip to South Moravia?

This is a BEST course, a summer course where you can learn about photography, computational biology, movies, special effects and film production, green architecture and many other topics. And in the meantime enjoying a pub crawling in Istanbul, a treasure hunt, going to the Pohorje forests or the valley of the Drava river in Maribor, learning salsa and enjoying the sun while becoming a fighter pilot, managing your own aircraft and conquering Madrid’s sky. You can expand your knowledge during a practical training of drinking beer in Belgium, surfing in Bulgaria or fire cooking food, driving a catamaran and drinking real Russian Vodka in Ekaterinburg.

It sounds great, doesn’t it? And the BEST part of it is, that these activities are organized from students to students which imply no profit from it. Conclusion: Participants only have to book a flight ticket, potentially paying a small fee of 20-45€ and their own drinks.My eyes are shining! I want to do this! I want to have the BEST summer of my life! How do I do that?

Easy, only five steps between you and your BEST summer course!

Register yourself atwww.BEST.eu.org

Cross your fingers and if you are lucky…

Contact us to validate your account*

Write a great motivation letter that makes you unique!

Find your course: Max 3 courses per season

Go and have the BEST summer course of your life!

* This step secures course organizers thatpeople applying are actually students.You can contact us at Copenhagen@BEST.eu.org

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Then an important question arises: What is a motivation letter?

A motivation letter is a short letter where you have the chance to show that you are unique, and you might make the course different only by your presence in the course. It is a short text that gives you the possibility of convincing the organizers that one of the 25 seats for the summer course has to be yours (and this is an important part because there can be more than 400 appli-cants for those 25 seats). Once again, you might take into consideration that these events are organized by students for students which means that those who are going to read the letters and choose who are the lucky participants are students, no professors, no company senior managers, no HR people to find a worker for a job. We are just young students who expect you being creative and special.

You might include:• Age and gender• Hobbies and interests• Something special from your country or city• Why did you choose this course and not any other• Skills in the field• Why a course on an international level which implies meeting a lot of new people• Why YOU, precisely YOU and not any other applicant

We are waiting for you, just take a piece of paper and do your BEST for you BEST summer course.

[A crazy example you might get inspiration from]

Silvia SaldañaHR, BEST Copenhagen

With a pencil in my handI dream about the viking land,where the capital's L Bee Geeis about to discover why they want me!

You would probably like to knowthe person behind this poetry-flow?My name is Thomas, I live in Turnhout,A Belgian city where you must know about

I love an electrical machine in front of me,The kind of engineering you can féel and sée.This is why this course seems cool,it's a challenge that makes me drewl!

But apart from an electric carI also love a cozy bar.On the background, some guitar...a lady on my side...you know: 'PR' ;-)

I have also heard something about your beers,they pretend to be world's best.Since I'm a Belgian, I want to test,The exactness of this rumours, cheers!

In BEST I seek a great adventure,a cultural bath, an academic venture.I cànnot wait to see all those facesexchange ideas from so many places.

With them I want to learn and seeall about renewable technology.With them I want to travel some miles,On the lovely Danish isles.

So let me feel and breath your cityI promise you, you won't be pityBecause honestly, I can't wait,To see your lovely little Mermaid!

As it is mentioned in step 3, it is important to write a great motivation letter since the decision of which are going to be the participants of each summer course is based mainly on the motivation letter that you send.

13 Where to go?!BEST has Courses all year round! Check best.eu.org

AlmadaThe Man on the Moon, An Odyssey in Space Engineering14/08 - 27/08/2011

AveiroFOODology: When biotechnology gets Delicious!26/08 - 06/09/2011

bonding DresdenLife in plastic, it's fantastic - The world of synthetics & textile03/06 - 10/06/2011

BrasovLive long and prosper - self sustainble energy17/07 - 25/07/2011

BratislavaBuild it smART26/06 - 06/07/2011

BrusselsWant to improve your networking? Lose the wire and make it wireless!20/07 - 30/07/2011

BrnoManage Your Future: Career Design12/06 - 23/06/2011

BucharestFame Is My Middle Name, Acting Is My Game19/06 - 30/06/2011

BudapastWe WHEEL rock you!28/07 - 08/08/2011

ChisinauBrand your product. Brand-yourself10/07 - 21/07/2011

Cluj-NapocaWe control the system!04/07 - 17/07/2011

CoimbraCan you feel the heat? - Fire patterns and behaviours26/07 - 06/08/2011

EkaterinburgB10 - YES, WE DO IT AGAIN!16/07 - 25/07/2011

GliwiceFIXIN' THE CITY08/07 - 20/07/2011

GliwiceBorn to be wild. There is no place you can't reach20/07 - 03/08/2011

GhentEcopolis - A smart, low carbon city04/07 - 17/07/2011

Faro AlgarveEnergised by the Sea... The Tidal Power04/08 - 13/08/2011

IasiGreen Future09/07 - 22/07/2011

GrenobleSummer School in Nanotechnologies06/06 - 01/07/2011

LisbonBe Wise - Enterprise!01/08 - 15/08/2011

KrakówLights, Camera, Action! - Course on 3D animation!11/07 - 22/07/2011

LiegeGeoLiegy will be Mine04/07 - 15/07/2011

LeuvenExperience Biomedical Engineering10/07 - 21/07/2011

LjubljanaHow I met my mother Earth?08/07 - 18/07/2011

Louvain-la-NeuveBionic man : not so unrealistic!03/07 - 12/07/2011

LodzHot, why not? Keep it positive!11/07 - 23/07/2011

SkopjeLEADERS- Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some will be made in Skopje!03/07 - 13/07/2011

Rome, Tor VergataGreen for speed : save the environment, drive hybrid vehicles!24/07 - 31/07/2011

PortoMusic and Technology: Loud and Clear!30/08 - 12/09/2011

NisSave for Tomorrow - Save Tomorrow!20/07 - 30/07/2011

MessinaEnergy from Solar Systems: the Sun even by Night!19/08 - 27/08/2011

MariborPhoto here, photo there, photo everywhere!01/07 - 11/07/2011

Wroclaw"Everybody wants Kung-Fu �ghting" - Biomechanics of sport12/07 - 20/07/2011

ViennaSave the moment. Shoot it BEST.11/07 - 24/07/2011

VeszprémRobots vs. Wrestlers09/07 - 17/07/2011

ZaporizhzhyaAC/DC: Track02_I've got the power!03/07 - 13/07/2011

ZagrebWatt can you do for the future? beSUSTAINABLE!02/06 - 13/06/2011

TimisoaraStreaming Episode 24: Timisoara strikes back21/07 - 01/08/2011

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Aveiro

Izmir

Saint Petersburg

Krakow

Wroclaw

AthensBlack gold: Drill for it... It ain't no trick to get rich quick!19/07 - 31/07/2011

CopenhagenLEt's GO! Don't MIND the STORMS15/08 - 26/08/2011

GothenburgThe Bullwhip e�ect: Is your "batch" large enough?03/08 - 13/08/2011

Madrid Carlos IIIWOA !! World of Aircraft ! Systems integration needed.01/07 - 13/07/2011

MadridWatch in 3D! Enjoy like 3!19/07 - 31/07/2011

LvivTwo beers or not two beers Secrets of brewing09/07 - 19/07/2011

LundEat me!05/06 - 18/06/2011

RigatreesBEC - INTO THE WOODS07/07 - 20/07/2011

PatrasRe-create engineering: Think out of the box!16/07 - 28/07/2011

StockholmS(t)imulating life: from CPU to your stomach12/06 - 23/06/2011

TampereThe BEST of Technology Foresight07/08 - 20/08/2011

TallinnClean it, trash it, re-recycle it!08/07 - 20/07/2011

AalborgSpace <- it's like HUGE, so get your satellite up there!30/07 - 13/08/2011

ChaniaAdvanced Optical Imaging Methods and Technologies for non-Destructive and non-Invasive Diagnosis.15/07 - 30/07/2011

Istanbul, YildizSense Istanbul:Photograph it,Expound it!!!15/06 - 23/06/2011

IzmirThe Algaes Always BEEPER: Learn the secret formula!07/08 - 16/08/2011

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BEST Copenhagen - Who are we?

PresidentLasse Korff

SecretaryMarimar Cortada

TreasurerPeter Bollhorn

HRSilvia Saldaña

FRChristoffer Lythcke-Jørgensen

PRJonas Poulsen

Johan Grundtvig FernandaMondadori

Rune Paamand Wojciech Kozuch

Ankit Khandelwal Marie Rasmussen Kristian Ott Milbo Marie Top Hartmann

Rikke Westphalen

Pink Duckie

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Asli Ozen Karen M. HAndersen

Birgit Haastrup Aleksander Gosk Christoffer Broendum

Maria del Pilar Romón Peris

Marieta Ivanova

Inese Nagla Velina Lyubenova Alina Manolache

Gabor PestiSorin Marinescu Deborah De Bruycker

Michal Staszewski Hristo Valev

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DTU Engineering Competition

The second edition of the BEST engineering competitions at DTU, took place two days in the fall of 2010. 16 teams competed in the two categories Team Design and Case study. Again this year a record number of 196 students applied to enter the competitions, and in the end 16 lucky teams from various study lines and nationalities was chosen to compete.

Both days of competition was started out by welcome speeches by Dean Martin Vigild and the main organizer of the event Marie Rasmussen, followed by a pre-sentation of the topic of the competition.

Team Design

The first day of competitions was dedicated to the competition in team design, where the task was to design a video game using the visual programming language KoDu. The main requirement for the video game was, that it should illustrate one or more laws of physics.

After almost four hours of hard work, a lot of fun and great ideas, all the teams presented their games. The winners – four international master students – came up with a very addictive multiplayer game where the aim was to collect apples and avoid dangers. For this, they won an Xbox, a voucher for the Kinect Xbox controller both provided by Microsoft and VIP passes for all events happe-ning during spring semester at Studenterhuset in downtown Copenhagen.

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The winners of both competitions now have the chance of represen-ting DTU at the Nordic edition of the BEST engineering competitions nordBEC, which is being held in April 2011 in Trondheim, Norway.

Here they will compete against teams from all of the Nordic coun-tries, and get the chance of qualify-ing to the European finals. We wish them all the BEST of luck!

Partners

Marie RasmussenMain Organizer

Case Study

On the second day of competition it was time for the Case study, where the topic was to solve a real life problem provided by the main sponsor Maersk. Although the task was challenging, the teams managed to come up with a lot of creative suggestions on how to handle the problem. The judging panel consisting of three company representatives considered all of the solutions to be very good and innovative, so they had a hard time choosing the winners. In the end four Danish students enrolled on the bachelor of Nanotechnology was chosen as the winners, and was each awarded an iPad kindly sponsored by Maersk and VIP passes for Studenterhuset.

Winners of Case Study, and representatives from Maersk

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Live, learn, make friends, travel, have fun, be serious, think, present yourself, sell your ideas, make rules, bend rules, learn how to win, learn to be a good loser,… Meaning of life? Maybe, but if not, it is definitely a good description of what is BEST and its youngest child nordBEC. This abbreviation hides the Nordic BEST Engineering Competition – the event that took place for the first time in region history in Copenhagen between 27th and 31st of March 2010.

60 students representing 8 Nordic Universities of Technology visited Copenhagen to compete, feel the international atmosphere, improve their technical skills and learn about other cultures. For each of them winning their Local BEST Engineering Competitions (LBECs) at their home universi-ties was the passport allowing to come here and do their best to win fabulous prizes and get a free ticket to the next stage of the competition. LBECs are only the beginning, nordBEC is just the second step. The serious challenge starts right after. Eight lucky winners from nordBEC were auto-matically invited to the European BEST Engineering Competition (EBEC), which in 2010 took place in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, from 31st of July to 10th of August. The winning Nordic team competed with students from all over the Europe to become the best of the best.

NordBEC (as well as EBEC) is something more than a student engineering contest. Include orga-nizers and special guests from all over the Scandinavia and you will reach the magical number of 100 students at the same place, at the same time. A real melting pot containing different ideas coming from various places, study lines, countries, backgrounds, expressed in has diverse languages and by unique personalities. The cultural diversity that is hard to be created in other conditions. Huge help of the sponsors: Maersk, LEGO, Vestas and Microsoft made this fabulous event possible.

The competition is similar to the ones at the local level. It was divided into two completely differ-ent categories – Team Design and Case Study. Taking into account an almost infinite number of ideas originated in the heads of BEST members, the proposed tasks surprised even organizers. Can you imagine grown up students spending 8 hours on fulfilling their childhood dreams to create unstoppable LEGO robot to beat all their opponents? A mixture of technical skills with deeply hidden ideas from the forgotten parts of our juvenile imagination was probably a good way to win the first prize in this competition category. Compete and have fun at the same time? Wel-come to BEST and its nordBEC.

The Nordic engineering competition 2010

nordBEC Sponsors

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demanded serious planning and efficient testing of the participants .

The tasks were designed to allow plenty of different approaches and usage of all NTX possibilities and sensors. That is why boundless creativity of participants led them to various solutions for the presented problems. Using touch sensor to find the wall or trying to estimate the distance using the ultrasonic sensor? Three or four wheels or maybe tank tracks? Using provided software or any pos-sible add-ons? How to be fast and accurate at the same time? How to find the balance between focusing on design, programming and testing? All those problems and questions resulted with different approaches and created passionate competition.

Wojciech KożuchMain Organizer of nordBEC 2010

The Team Design task was based on LEGO Mindstorms NXT 2.0 sets provided by LEGO. Participants were supposed to design, build and program the robot enabling it to perform six different tasks. The first three was to follow a curved line, locate it after losing it and following a loop. Here the goal was speed and thus a low completion time. The final three tasks aimed for accuracy. Finding the way out of the chamber by locating one of the randomly opened exits, parallel parking and finally attaching a pen and writing “BEST” on piece of paper

After 8 hours of building and additional 3 hours of test-ing the winners was found. Team Design was won by 4 polish students representing the Technical University of Denmark. Doubtlessly they built the best robot and where able to complete all and win 4 out of 6 tasks. A NXT 2.0 got four new owners and Cluj-Napoca got to know the names of the first finalists.

On the other hand, the other participants had to deal with serious and complex real life engineering problems. Case Study task provided by Maersk demanded from students to develop a theoretical solution of the prob-lem that sometimes overwhelms even experienced engi-neers. This time students basing on numerous provided data, reports and the help from professionals had to propose power management solutions for oil platforms. Fresh and innovative points of view resulting in amazing and untypical ideas were key features that amused company judges and opened the way to win. Also in this category students from Copenhagen did not leave their rivals any chance and won LEGO sets and the tickets to Romania.

The participant schedule was filled with more than only competition tasks. Personal trainings and various social activities didn’t let them get bored even for a second. Organizers didn’t miss the chance to show participants every worth seeing parts of beautiful Copenhagen during the City Rally. They repaid this great hospitality by presenting their own countries on the last night during the famous BEST International Evening.

It is too late to take part this year, but do not miss your chance to challenge other students during next year LBECs and hopefully next nordBEC. We are going to be there, what about you?

21 The Presidents are meeting in Copenhagen

In November 2011, all of Europe will be looking towards Copenhagen where the next general assembly of BEST presidents will take place. 150 local group leaders, international committee coordinators and the BEST board members will meet to determine the future direction of BEST at the conference which we in the Copenhagen group has been elected to organize.

In the spring of 2010, some members from BEST Copenhagen got the idea of running for the very prestigious task of organizing the BEST President Meeting in 2011. Over the summer, huge efforts were put into developing the concept that we were going to compete with at the Presi-dents Meeting 2010 in Krakow, and in the end, an overwhelming victory was achieved in the final voting round against Riga, one of the strongest BEST groups. This means that in the period 9th-16th of November 2011, the largest BEST event in Scandinavia since 2004 will be taking place at DTU in Lyngby, Copenhagen.

The core of our concept is very simple: we want to take things ‘back to basics’. Why book a fancy hotel and spend a fortune on catered breakfast and lunch when people can just as well be sleep-ing in the university sports halls and eat a traditional Danish buffet? We believe that resources should be allocated to improve the core concepts of the meeting rather than to provide a few days of luxury for the participants. Also, we want to add a ‘Scandinavian touch’ to the event; things are to be run effectively, punctually and on time, and we want to use this unique opportu-nity that we have been given to present Scandinavian culture towards the rest of Europe as well. BEST traditions state that the Presidents Meeting must be given a theme, and sticking to the inter-Scandinavian concept, ‘Vikings’ was chosen for the event in Copenhagen.

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itself. During the partner’s conference, the companies that we cooperate with present them-selves, they do workshops together with the BEST members, and there will also be a job fair in the end where the companies can address the members individually and vice versa. This part of the event will be carried out in cooperation with DSE and IAESTE, two other student organizations present at our university, while the rest of the event is taken care of by BEST Copenhagen.

At this point, the facilities for the conference have been booked with help from DTU, and the basic contents have been decided. However, the progress will continue all the way until November 2011. If you are interested in the development of the Presidents Meeting 2011, want to know more about the event itself, or wishes to get in contact with us, you are more than welcome to visit our homepage www.2011.presidentsmeeting.eu. Otherwise, feel free to contact me or any other member from BEST Copenhagen if you have any questions or enqui-ries regarding the event. We look forward to seeing you in November!

In order to host a huge event like the Presi-dents Meeting successfully, the organization must be strong and well-functioning. At this point, seven people with four different natio-nalities from three BEST groups (Copenhagen, Aalborg and Riga) have been chosen to lead the event. Besides this, the project is backed up by the entire Nordic Region in BEST, meaning that members from all over Scandinavia will take part in the planning and preparations for the confe-rence.

The event itself will consist of three different parts; a partner’s conference, an internal workshop day, and the general assembly

Christo�er Lythcke-Jørgensen

Main organizer, BEST PM 2011

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www.BEST.eu.orgwww.BEST.dtu.dk

This report is published by: BEST Copenhagen Polyteknisk Forening Anker Engelundsvej 1 DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby Tel: +45 77 42 44 05 E-mail: BEST@student.dtu.dk Local URL: www.BEST.dtu.dk Int. URL: www.BEST.eu.org

Design & Coordination: Jonas Deckers Poulsen & Rune Tore Paamand

Photos: BEST members

Texts: DTU President Lars Pallesen, Christo�er Lythcke-Jørgensen, Lasse Kor�, Silvia Saldanã Wojciech Kozuch, Marie Rasmussen, Jonas Deckers Poulsen, Ankit Khandelwal, Rafaela Voiculescu

Thanks to: MAERSK, DTU, PF and our beloved STUDENTS!

Annual Report Authors

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