Anouschka - 2019 Sir William Siemens Challenge winner

I entered the Hackathon in the first year and despite not being able to do anything as I barely knew about electronics I had so much fun I decided to enter again. I thought as a third year as I would be able to do actually do things in the project and I did!  It was great this year as I did all the wiring, sorted everyone's soldering out and helped with all the electronics which were the backbone for how it turned on.

We had to design a digital device to represent the data taken from The Diamond building.  You can't have a Hackathon with everyone doing the same thing so I made sure I went between the teams within our group making sure everyone was communicating with each other. We had the Computer Scientists coding and decoding all the data, the Mech Eng'ers were making the structure of it and then the Electronic Engineers (myself and Dave) were doing the wiring for the motors, setting it up and linking it together. 

There were around 70 universities involved in the competition from all across the UK with a mix of engineers.  Our team won and I have been awarded a 12 month placement with Siemens which I am really pleased about and I hope to be able to see what sectors I might be interested in when I graduate.  

I would advise students to take part in the competition as it's not often you get the chance to concentrate on and build a project in a 48 hour period without any other distractions.  It's very stressful but it gives you confidence in what you have learnt from your degree and you realise you are a smart person!  You also get to meet loads of people who are really keen as well and you get to see loads of amazing creations.