The qualifying stage of our International Engineering Mechanics Contest in Asian region

Published: Friday, 22 December 2023 08:57

Since 2005, the Department of Technical Physics and Engineering Mechanics has been the organizer of the International Engineering Mechanics Contest, which is very popular not only in the territory of the former USSR, but also in other regions.

Belarusian State University of Transport began to collaborate with Hohai University (Nanjing, People's Republic of China) in 2018. In accordance with the agreement signed between our universities, the College of Mechanics and Materials of the named university was delegated the right to host the Asian stage of the International Engineering Mechanics Contest. This year the Contest in Asian region was held in December for the fourth time.

The organizing committee and the judgement of the Contest included employees of our university who fruitfully collaborate with the Chinese colleagues: the head of the “Technical Physics and Engineering Mechanics” department Alexandr Shimanovsky and associate professor of the same department and the department of “Management of freight and commercial work” Maryna Gegedesh, who received personal invitation from the organizers of the Contest for participation in it.

From left to right: Dean of the College of Mechanical and Materials of Hohai University prof. Dong Lei,
prof. Shimanovsky A., assoc. prof. Gegedesh M. and head of the International office of the College of Mechanical and Materials prof. Lin Ji

560 students and more than 100 teachers from 65 universities arrived in Nanjing to participate in the International Contest in Engineering Mechanics (Asian region). They represented the mainland of China and the island of Taiwan.

The common photo of the participants

At the opening of the Contest, the leaders of Hohai University, as well as the Director of the Steering Committee for Teaching Basic Engineering Courses of the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, Professor of Tsinghua University (the leading university of the People's Republic of China, one of the top ten universities in the world) Yuan Xi welcomed the participants. Professor A. O. Shimanovsky also made a welcoming speech in English.

At the opening ceremony of the International Engineering Mechanics Contest (Asian region)

Prof. Shimanovsky A. makes a welcoming speech at the Contest opening

As in previous years, the representatives of Belarusian State University of Transport, according to the request of the organizing committee from Hohai University, prepared competitive tasks for the participants (in English), and also supervised the stages of the Contest.

While students were solving problems of the main competition of the Contest (there were 8 problems to solve within 4 hours), the College of Mechanics and Materials of Hohai University organized a seminar for teachers, where Maryna Gegedesh made a report on the peculiarities of the pedagogical process organization in Belarusian State University of Transport and on the directions of its activities.

The report of assoc. prof. Gegedesh M. at the teacher’s seminar

The judgement, specially convened to check the students' solutions, included 20 teachers from various Chinese universities, as well as our representatives.

Prof. Shimanovsky A. hands out the problems for the Contest in one of the rooms

The teachers from the judgement staff discuss the problems of the main competition

As a result of the solutions checking for the theoretical part of the Contest, it turned out that four participants scored the maximum possible number of points (80 out of 80). These students are Gu Dasheng (Huazhong University of Science and Technology) and Liu Jiaqi, Liu Yang, Luo Haoran from Tsinghua University. So the team of Tsinghua University (the highest three results of students from the university) showed the best result in the team competition. The team of Huazhong University of Science and Technology took the second place, the team of Shanghai Tongji University was at the third place.

The total winners of the 2023 International Engineering Mechanics Contest in Asian region

By analogy with the final stage of International Contest in Engineering Mechanics, a team problem-solving competition “Brain Ring” was also held. Here, the largest number of correct answers - 26 out of 30 - was given by the participants from the teams of Tsinghua and Tongji Universities. The team from Beijing University of Technology scored one point less.

It is planned that the teams that showed the best results in main competition will take part in the International Engineering Mechanics Contest, which is expected to be held at our university in April 2024.

During the event, there was a possibility to communicate with its participants and to gain interesting information about the teaching process in Chinese universities.

The organizers of the International Engineering Mechanics Contest in Asian region expressed gratitude to our university for allowing Hohai University to become a base for the qualifying competition in Asian region, as well as for our assistance in the Contest organization.

New district in Nanjing