“For me, it is one of the nicest things to do - to plan a project, to execute it and to see it being implemented. To any engineer, it is wonderful to experience this.”
  These are the words of Mr. Piet van Huyssteen, lecturer in electronic engineering, regarding concerning his involvement in the Siemens Cyber Junkyard competition over the past three years. This sought-after competition has been presented since 2003, and the NWU Puk won it in 2006 and 2008.
  Van Huyssteen says the competition is extremely popular among students and annually they have to turn away many who wish to participate. A team of six third-year engineering students are chosen from the mechanical, electric, electronic and computer engineering courses. This team is involved from the very beginning in building the project and long hours are dedicated to it. Van Huyssteen says shortly before the deadline date the team’s dedication is tested to the limit with some nights when they get no sleep at all, while their academic work may also not be interrupted.
  He says the competition brings together practice and academics where participants are introduced to the industry. During the crowning occasion of the competition they meet business people and can even walk off with a job offer.
  The competition is sponsored by Siemens and is aimed at providing industrial electronic equipment to apply process control. Festo supplies pneumatic equipment which controls air pressure. These companies send out tenders annually to participate in a specific project.
  Van Huyssteen says he helped the students in 2006 to build a machine that pieces together key holders. The next year they built a model to do process flow calculations and last year their automatic coffee machine won. Members of the winning team receive huge prizes at Siemens, 21 days of advanced training in any of their courses, as well as a huge amount of engineering equipment for the University.
  Following his studies, Van Huyssteen designed systems for industries in electric and electronic engineering at Pretoria Technikon for twelve years, and also developed hard and software for the industry.
  He says this experience comes in handy for him when planning and executing the Cyber Junkyard competition.