ME PhD student clinches 1st Runner-up and People’s Choice Award in Faculty 3MT Competition

Congratulations to Mr Liang Zhaojian, a research student representing the Department of Mechanical Engineering (ME), won the First Runner-up and People’s Choice Award in the Three Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition 2023 organized by the PolyU Faculty of Engineering. 3MT® celebrates the exciting research conducted by research postgraduate students. Developed by the University of Queensland, Australia, the competition cultivates students’ academic presentation and research communication skills, and supports their capacity to effectively explain their research and its significance in three minutes, in a language appropriate to non-specialist audiences. 3MT® is now a globally recognized competition that has been held in over 900 universities across more than 80 countries worldwide. On 16 June 2023, the PolyU Faculty of Engineering held the 3MT Competition. Seven affiliated departments nominated their research students to participate in it. The participants each delivered a high-impact brief presentation within 3-minute. Most of them demonstrated good academic pitching skills. A panel of judges by representatives from the seven affiliated departments was formed and selected the best presenters. Zhaojian is currently a PhD student in ME under the supervision of Dr Li Mengying. “Energy storage using solid oxide electrolysis cell (SOEC) -- A story about speeds” is the title about his research project for this competition. His lively narration of academic research has won him two awards. We are very proud of his outstanding performance. Learn more at PolyU Faculty of Engineering Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) Competition

Dr Ma Yuan received PolyU Young Innovation Researcher Award (YIRA) 2023

Dr Ma Yuan, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been awarded the PolyU Young Innovative Researcher Award (YIRA) for 2023. His research focuses on developing "Flexible surface haptics technology for aiding the visually impaired population". The aim of Dr Ma's research project is to create a new touch feedback technology on soft materials that can assist visually impaired individuals in interacting with digital devices and the digital world. By developing a flexible system that can produce different touch sensations, he hopes to create a more efficient and user-friendly experience for those with visual impairments. This will involve combining advanced haptic technologies and artificial intelligence algorithms. The YIRA recognizes young PolyU researchers under the age of 35 who have demonstrated novelty, contributed to technology advancement, and propelled transformational innovation into solutions for addressing problems in society with a vision for a positive change to the future. The assessment panel, composed of Prof. Christopher Chao (VPRI), Christina Wong (DoRI), and various Faculty Deans, reviewed numerous outstanding submissions across 14 departments and selected 6 YIRA awardees this year. Each YIRA awardee will receive research funding support of HK$500,000 and a personal cash prize of HK$20,000 as recognition for their research novelty and impact. We are proud to see young researchers like Dr Ma achieving outstanding accomplishments in innovative research.

ME Department Head and Staff Honoured for Loyal Service

Colleagues of the PolyU Department of Mechanical Engineering (ME) have always been devoting themselves to the development of ME. This year, our Department Head, Prof. Su Zhongqing received the Award for his 15th year of service in PolyU. Besides, 8 staff members of ME received the Award for their 20th, and 15th year of service. The University President invited all recipients of the Long Service Awards 2022 to a tea gathering at U.Green on 5 May 2023 to pay tribute to long-serving staff members for their loyal and committed service over the years. Congratulations to the award recipients and heartfelt thanks for their years of dedication and devotion which have marked the achievements of the Department.   Long Service Award 2022 Award Recipients Length of Service Name     Post Title     20 years Dr Randolph C. K. Leung 梁志堅  Associate Professor   15 years Prof. Zhongqing Su  蘇眾慶 Head (ME) & Professor    15 years Dr Y. S. Choy  蔡逸思  Associate Professor   15 years Dr G.P. Zheng  鄭廣平  Associate Professor    15 years Ms Karen Cho 曹秀容  Assistant Marketing Manager  15 years Dr Ng Chun 吳駿  Senior Technical Officer  15 years Mr Jack Wong  黄國威  Technical Officer   15 years Mr K. O. Yuen  袁家安  Technical Officer   15 years Ms Yan Wong 黃錦恩   Clerk 

Dr Zhang Xiao received the Most Popular Cover Award at eScience Summit

Oriented to the national major strategic needs in the field of new energy and the frontier of world science and technology, the 2023 eScience Summit (New Energy Youth Session), organised by the eScience Editorial Board and the Haihe Institute of Carbon Neutral Research, Nankai District, Tianjin, was held at the Tianjin Social Hill International Conference Centre Hotel from 21 to 23 April 2023. With the theme of "New Energy for Chinese Modernization", the conference attracted more than 800 participants from universities, research institutes and related enterprises, engineers and students from all over China, focusing on energy storage batteries, power batteries, electrocatalysis and synthesis, photoelectric energy utilization and new energy AI and advanced characterization. Five sessions were set up to discuss the topics of energy storage battery, power cell, electrocatalysis and synthesis, photoelectric energy utilization, and new energy AI and advanced characterization, with 178 invited presentations and 115 poster sessions. The session presenters gave excellent academic reports and exchanged the latest research results in the field of new energy, making new contributions to help the high-quality development of green, low-carbon and sustainable energy. 18 Young People's Awards for Outstanding Contribution and 3 Most Popular Cover Awards were presented. Congratulations to Dr Zhang Xiao, Assistant Professor in the PolyU Department of Mechanical Engineering, who has received the Most Popular Cover Award. His research title is "Phase engineering of metal nanocatalysts for electrochemical CO2 reduction". Authors include Yanjie Zhai, Peng Han, Qinbai Yun, Yiyao Ge, Xiao Zhang, Ye Chen, Hua Zhang. The first author, Zhai Yanjie, is a year-2 PhD student of PolyU Department of Mechanical Engineering. Dr Zhang Xiao is the corresponding author. About eScience Summit (Chinese article) https://hhsys.kxjs.tj.gov.cn/c/2023-04-25/496963.shtml About eScience Journal https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/escience

The 8th ME Research Presentation Competition

The 8th PolyU Mechanical Engineering Research Presentation Competition was successfully held on 2 Mar 2023. It is an annual event for research students to display their research project results and share knowledge with the PolyU community. The Research Student Liaison Officer, Dr David Navarro-Alarcon, introduced the competition emphasizing academic pitching skills, with an aim to train research students to explain academic ideas to peers and non-experts clearly. The Associate Head (Research), Dr Tang Hui, addressed the opening of this 8th annual competition which has been bringing invaluable opportunities for ME research students’ talents to be known. This year, we invited 15 academics from 3 main discipline areas (Control, Acoustics and Dynamics; Materials and Solid Mechanics; Thermofluids and Combustion) to form a panel of judges to select the best presenters. Being one of the panel members, Prof. Cheng Li, Associate Dean (Research) of the Faculty of Engineering, was very glad to have witnessed the evolution of the event - from a simple and crude poster competition held outdoors at PolyU podium to a decent function supported by a very strong judging panel giving their professional review. Twenty research student participants each delivered a high-impact brief in a 3-minute presentation. With their professional and animated presentations, those academic and technical terms were no longer distant to the layman. Most of the participants demonstrated outstanding academic pitching skills. Prof. Wang Zuankai, Associate Vice President (Research and Innovation), as a judging panel member, was impressed by the performance of the candidates and the wide spectrum of research areas to which ME research students are dedicated. Prof. Wang Liqiu, another Chair Professor who recently joined the Department, was thrilled to listen to the pitching by young researchers and opined that with the key message, they grabbed the audience’s attention. After the oral presentations, participants interacted with the audience in the research posters exhibition. Displayed posters not only highlighted their research project results, but it was also an occasion for participants to convey their ideas, and communicate with viewers and professionals. All other research students and PolyU staff members have also joined the event and vote for the People’s Choice award. They had appealed to a large audience to vote for them. Prof. Su Zhongqing, Head of the Department, concluded the competition with a quote from Einstein “If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.” Congratulations on the fabulous presentations and excellent research work! Champion and People’s Choice Student: Ms LABAZANOVA Luiza Supervisor: Dr David Navarro-Alarcon  Title: Self-Reconfigurable Soft-Rigid Multi-Agent System 1st Runner-Up Student: Ms HUO Xiaoyu  Supervisor: Dr AN Liang  Title: Development of a redox flow battery for large-scale energy storage    2nd Runner-Up Student: Mr LIANG Zhaojian  Supervisor: Dr LI Mengying  Title: Energy storage using solid oxide electrolysis cell (SOEC) - A story about speeds  Merit Student: Ms ZHANG Kouer  Supervisor: Dr AN Liang  Title: Green ammonia production from electrocatalytic nitrate reduction under ambient conditions 

ME Scientist Research Achievement received HUAWEI Spark Award

Professor WANG Zuankai, Associate Vice President (Research and Innovation) and Chair Professor of Nature-Inspired Engineering in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, received the “Problem Unveiling” Spark Award (「難題揭榜」火花獎) presented by Huawei for his innovative achievement in most water-repellent surface. Huawei presented to the society the challenges of industry and scientific value, giving exploration, guidance, openness, and reflection, scientists were encouraged to come up with innovative ideas. Professor Wang proposed a novel solution to the Legion Challenge Phase II problem "Transparent and wear-resistant super-sparse surface" (透明耐磨的超疏表面). Professor Wang was awarded the Huawei Spark Award for his innovative and useful technical solution. Huawei established the Spark Award to recognize outstanding scientists and companies, to thank for their significant contributions to industry and science, and to inspire more talents to challenge the challenges.

ME Graduates win Champion at Hong Kong Techathon 2023

This year, PolyU has achieved outstanding results at Hong Kong Techathon 2023. PolyU teams took away seven of the 16 prizes in this competition, including three Champions, one First Runner-up, two Second Runner–ups and one Best Presentation Award. Almost 200 PolyU students entered the competition. PolyU teams were champions in three of the four categories in the competition. The champion teams were 417 Tech in the ArtTech & EdTech category, Fleming MedLab in the Healthcare & GeronTech category and BoostRider in the Smart Cities & Sustainability category. The team “BoostRider” was formed by two graduates from the Department, Lam Yuen Yik (Graduate 2021, BEng (Hons) in Product Analysis and Engineering Design) and Kevin Yau Pang Yeung (Graduate 2021, BEng (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering), together with 2 student/graduate from PolyU Department of Electronic and Information Engineering, and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. The BoostRider, named Champion in the Smart Cities and Sustainability area, is a start-up that developed a tool with a good cause. Kevin Yau explained: “Powered by machine and app, our AI wheelchair helps physically impaired people to move around without having to strain their arms – these machines are like good friends lending them a hand just when they need it. Hong Kong Techathon 2023 is a competition jointly organized by the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation and nine local universities. It aims to promote the development of Hong Kong's innovation and technology start-up ecosystem, providing young people with diversified learning opportunities and entrepreneurial support.   Learn more https://www.hkstp.org/news-room/hong-kong-techathon-2023-jointly-presented-by-hkstp-and-nine-universities/

ME Final Year Project wins Championship of HKIE Best Final-Year Environmental Project

Congratulations to our team of three 2022 graduates of BEng (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering for receiving the Group Project Winner (Champion) of 2021/2022 Best Final Year Environmental Project Award hosted by the Environmental Division of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (HKIE) for their final year project entitled “Design and Development of a Passive e-Fuel Cell”. The team, consisting of CHANG Yu Hao, DAI Yichen, and RASHID Sameer, was supervised by Dr AN Liang and Dr SHI Xingyi. This award aims to recognize the efforts of final-year students in completing good quality final year projects and to encourage them to continue the effort in improving the environmental engineering practice in their future careers.

Dr David Navarro-Alarcon appointed Associate Editor of prestigious IEEE Journal

Dr David Navarro-Alarcon, Assistant Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been appointed as a new Associate Editor by the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO). The editorial board of this journal is composed of world-renowned scholars in the robotics research community. Published by IEEE, T-RO is a leading international journal dedicated to publishing research papers that represent major advances in the state-of-the-art on all aspects of robotics, featuring interdisciplinary approaches from computer science, control systems, electrical engineering, mathematics, mechanical engineering, and other fields. In 2021, T-RO was by far the most cited journal in robotics and the impact factor reached an all-time high. Dr Navarro-Alarcon has been working in the area of robotics and controls over the years. He is the Principal Investigator of the Robotics and Machine Intelligence Laboratory (ROMI-Lab). His current research interests include perceptual robotics, adaptive behaviour, and control theory. The main goal of his scientific work is to establish new paradigms that explain the development of advanced sensorimotor capabilities in robots and intelligent machines. David follows a multidisciplinary approach to research. His investigations combine knowledge from various fields such as analytical mechanics and physics, control theory, computing, perception and neurosciences.

Prof. Wang Zuankai awarded inaugural BOCHK Science and Technology Innovation Prize

Prof. WANG Zuankai, Associate Vice President (Research and Innovation) and Chair Professor of Nature-Inspired Engineering in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been awarded the inaugural BOCHK Science and Technology Innovation Prize (STIP), for his outstanding contributions in the field of “Advanced Manufacturing”. He will receive a HK$2 million cash prize. Prof. WANG is recognized in the “Advanced Manufacturing” field for his multidisciplinary research and breakthrough achievements at the interface of advanced manufacturing, surface science, fluid mechanism, thermal energy, materials science and physics. He has published over 200 papers in Nature, Science, Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences and other journals. Prof. Wang’s research has answered three century-old scientific questions—what the shortest contact time between solid and liquid is, how to steer directional liquid flow and how to overcome the Leidenfrost effect first discovered in 1756. He has also made an important contribution to exploring nature-inspired surfaces for a wide range of applications such as water energy harvesting, thermal cooling, fluid transport and flexible electronics. The BOCHK Science and Technology Innovation Prize, established by the Hong Kong Alliance of Technology and Innovation and sponsored by the Bank of China (Hong Kong) Limited, is a non-governmental merit-based award. The Award aims at facilitating the development of science and technology innovation in Hong Kong by rewarding outstanding individuals and groups who have made significant contributions to science and technology innovation in Hong Kong. The award ceremony was held on 22 December 2022.