Mayo student wins ATU engineering competition
AN ATU engineering student from Mayo has won a top award.
Roy Sheridan's project on 'The engineering design and manufacture of a desktop CNC milling machine for pedagogical purposes' won him the overall undergraduate competition award at ATU Galway’s annual Engineering Exhibition and Competition 2023.
Roy gains entry into Engineers Ireland’s Innovative Student Engineer of the Year competition which takes place in Dublin in autumn.
Roy, from Castlebar, was one of 100 students who digitally exhibited final year poster work, 60 of which were displayed on-site in the café foyer, Dublin Road campus, after a thorough shortlisting and voting process. All the posters were critiqued and judged by a panel of 28 external engineering representatives from 22 companies at the formal competition run on campus on May 4.
Describing his project, Roy said: “3D printing has revolutionised the way students are taught engineering, however one process that is continually overlooked due to the expense involved is CNC machining. Therefore, for this project, using the engineering design process and machine design principles, I designed and manufactured a three axis desktop CNC milling machine which can be used by educators and students for training and teaching STEM.”
Event organiser and Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering departmental head, Dr. Oliver Mulryan, said: “The end of year engineering expo is an important event in our academic calendar, which allows the department and students to interact with industry. On the event day, there was a lot of innovative practical work on display, and it’s great to see out students confidently interact with industry representatives.
“Many of our students think outside the box and produce creative engineering solutions. Well done to our students and to all who mentored, guided and supported them.”
Pictured, at back, from left: Gerard Forde, Project Manager, Boston Scientific; Joseph Staunton, Clean Utility Engineer, CBRE; Alan Flannery, HR Operations Manager, PEM; Joshua Bolton Brown, Talent Acquisition Partner, Baxter; Dr. William Finnegan, Committee Representative, Engineers Ireland West; Doru Boblea, Design Engineer, Caragh Precision; Alan Murphy, Engineering Manager, Celestica; Donal Collins, R&D Manager, McHale; and Caner Doogan, Education Success Program, MathWorks. Middle row: Dr. Oliver Mulryan, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Departmental Head; Kieran Kellher, Sr Maintenance Engineer, Zimmer Biomet; Brendan Kilkenny, Senior Process, Stryker; Pierre Yimbog, Community Engagement Executive, Engineers Ireland; Shane Kelly, Director, Unitherm; Niamh Dolan, Mechanical Design Engineer, Thermoking; Michael O’Malley, Senior Manufacturing Engineer, Zimmer Biomet; Nicholas Burke, Senior Engineer, RPS Group; Frank Murphy, Principal Engineer, PEM; Liam Ruddy, Mechanical Engineer, TE Connectivity; and Liam Collins, CEO, Collin’s Plastics. At front: Aoife Earnor, R&D Graduate Engineer, Stryker; Patricia Conroy, Chief People Officer, Caragh Precision; Richard Tarrant, Principal Engineer, Medtronic; Fernanda Soares, HR Specialist, Celestica; Shauna Clarke, Associate Project Process Engineer, Hollister ULC; Dr. Orla Flynn, President of ATU; Roy Sheridan, 4th Year Mechanical Engineering, Overall Competition Winner; Alan Heneghan, Production Unit Manager, Boston Scientific; and Michael Collins, CEO, Collin’s Plastics. Photo: Mike Shaughnessy