Inventors from several of Qatar’s leading institutions showcased their creative applications of cutting-edge technology in the 3-D Challenge hosted by Texas A&M University at Qatar (Tamuq).
Two competitions comprised the 3-D Challenge: the 3-D Printing Competition, which was in its fourth year, and Visualisation Development Competition, in its eighth year.
Together, the contests were designed to promote innovation through advanced technology. The competitions were open to innovators from Education City and across Qatar, and enabled users to develop and port their applications to visualisation and 3-D printing systems.
Projects were judged on several criteria, including creativity and innovation, functionality and usefulness, feasibility, and student involvement.
The 3-D printing industry is growing at a fierce rate and is changing the way people conduct their day-to-day lives. 3-D printing services are playing a key role in creating new business and new business opportunities.
It was with this understanding that Tamuq established its unique 3-D printing facility - the first of its kind in Qatar - to allow students, designers, researchers and engineers to step beyond the virtual barriers and interact with real-world objects, and the 3-D Printing competition supports this goal.
This year’s winners of the 3-D Printing Competition were Albert Liberski from Sidra with the project, ‘Textile Heart Valve Prosthesis,’ Sajith Chakithandy and Mohamed Zekri from Hamad Medical Corporation for the project ‘Ventilation With a View Mask,’ and John Seawright from Carnegie-Mellon University in Qatar with the project ‘Hairdryer.’
The Visualisation Development Competition invited researchers to submit proposals to develop research projects using Tamuq’s powerful 3-D Immersive Visualisation Facility, which utilises scientific visualisation to create three-dimensional images and graphics that aid in analysing complex numerical representation.
This technology helps scientists see data sets in new ways so that they can find patterns or relationships and communicate their data to others. Viewers feel completely immersed in the experience, and all images are displayed in 3-D with the use of special goggles.
A team from Total Qatar - Oussama Gharbi, Priyank Maheshwari and Dominique Guerillot - won first place in the Visualisation Development Competition for their project ‘A Reactive Flow Trip from the Pore Scale to the Reservoir Scale.’
The second place went to Dr Aziz Rahman from Tamuq for his project ‘Development of a 3-D Visualisation Tool for Offshore Pipeline.’
A Tamuq team of Ahmad al-Kuwari, Ghada al-Haroon and Ahmed Hussain won a special award for students for their project ‘3-D Printing for Enhanced and Integrated Engineering Curriculum.’
Dr Ann Kenimer, interim dean of Tamuq observed that the work demonstrated helps users grapple with very large, very complex data sets that are simply not digestible in two dimensions.
“3-D printing and visualisation helps students understand complex problems, and helps designers and researchers understand the systems in which they are doing design or research,” she explained.
Yasser al-Hamidi, technical lab manager in the Mechanical Engineering Programme, organised this year’s 3-D Printing Competition, while Dr Othmane Bouhali, director of research computing, organised the Visualisation Competition.
Dr Mike Bowman, chair of the Petroleum Engineering Programme at Texas A&M at Qatar, gave the opening keynote address in which he discussed key advances in imaging, visualisation and characterisation.
Mechanical engineering professor Dr Hamid Parsaei and electrical and computer engineering professor Dr Mohamed Abdallah served as judges.