From May 10 to 12, “Zhonghang Cup” 22nd Zhejiang Provincial Structure Design Contest for College students and the National Structure Design Contest for College students in Zhejiang Province were held. A total of 100 teams from 48 colleges and universities across Zhejiang province participated in this contest. After intense competition in model making, weight acceptance, and loading contest, the entry “Cloud Sea Flying Boat” by Li Xinyang, a 25’ Civil Engineering undergraduate student of ZJUI, Wu Changlong and Meng Ziqi, 26’ Urban Planning undergraduate students at the College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Zhejiang University, won the third prize in this contest. This is another excellent prize for ZJUI students after their second prize of Zhejiang Provincial Structure Design Contest in 2021 and the first prize of National Structure Design Contest for College students in 2023 for our students.
▲ Award-winning cerificate
The “Zhonghang Cup” 22nd Zhejiang Provincial Structure Design Contest for College students is an important platform to test the structural design ability and innovation spirit of college students. The contest, titled "Structure Design and Modeling of Suspended Viewing Platform", aims to explore new structural design concepts and technologies through practice, and requires participants to design and produce a structural model of a suspended viewing platform on site within 9 hours, and test the safety and reliability of the platform structure under simulated wind load and gravity of moving crowds.
Li Xinyang's team's entry, " Cloud Sea Flying Boat ", used a group design of variable section main cantilever and single pick beam cantilever to ensure structural strength and simplify components, thus greatly reducing the quality. In order to prevent the ball from rolling off the platform, Li Xinyang's team used an arch-shaped baffle to absorb most of the ball's kinetic energy and designed a fence around it to prevent it from falling from the side. Li Xinyang's team not only showed ingenuity in the design concept, but also demonstrated a high level of professionalism and teamwork in the modeling and on-site defense.
▲ Li Xinyang (first from the right) designed structural models at the competition
"I learned a lot about building structures in the contest, and I was really able to apply the research theories I learned to actual structural design. From the first year of the contest, when I was ignorant, to the third year, when I basically mastered the principles of structural design, I think what has sustained me during these three years of repeated defeats is not only the desire to prove myself, but also my unremitting love for structural design." When talking about the experience of winning the award, Li Xinyang shared with us.
After accumulating several competition experiences, he cherished this provincial contest. Even with the time constraints and heavy schoolwork, Li Xinyang quickly devoted himself to preparing the contest, insisting on completing one version of the model every week and rushing to Zijingang Campus, ZJU to load and adjust the model with his team members. On the eve of the competition, Li Xinyang and his team members revised and tested the model late into the night, taking care of every aspect. When talking about this experience, Li Xinyang told us, "The night before the contest, I looked at the more than ten versions of the model we had completed before the competition, and I was overwhelmed with emotion. From the 240g model at the beginning to the 170g model in the last version, this model contains a lot of black nights and scars on our hands." It is with such perseverance and non-stop exploration that Li Xinyang's team was able to win the contest.
▲ Midas Civil model diagram
▲ The structural model made by Li Xinyang's team during the preparation for the competition
In addition to their own dedication to research, the success of the team is also inseparable from the mutual help of teammates and the careful guidance of instructors and senior students. Li Xinyang and his teammates sleeplessly discussed and modified the model together, studied the relevant knowledge and principles of structural design in an all-round way, actively exchanged ideas and learned from former seniors, and regularly took the initiative to communicate with Prof. Cai Jinbiao (the instructor) from College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Zhejiang University, which were the secret he used to overcome the difficulties along the way in the process of preparing for the contest. "Chen Jianye, who majored in Mechanical Engineering in the class of 2020, was my guide to the structure contest, and it was also him who gave me a deeper understanding of the contest." Li Xinyang told us. In this regard, he also hopes to help his junior students understand more about the Structure Contest through his own efforts, and inspire their enthusiasm, so that he can lead more ZJUI students to the stage of the Provincial and the National Contest.
▲ Li Xinyang participated in the competition and took photos
ZJUI takes innovation and entrepreneurship training and disciplinary skills competitions as an opportunity for students to cultivate their practical ability, promotes teaching and creativity by competitions, strengthens students' innovative thinking ability, teamwork ability and practical hands-on ability, expands students' engineering horizons, and devotes itself to cultivating internationalized cross-innovative students in new engineering disciplines, providing the power for engineering to change the world.
