Student Symposium

This challenge is for student teams researching and designing a technological solution that solves a problem, then developing a research paper and presentation for the solution.  This challenge does not have to demonstrate a model or prototype, however, these can be incorporated into the final presentation as photos if teams have developed them.

Teams present their research through a series of slides and a talk that details their research into the problem, their design process and the final ideas for a solution.  It is essential that teams demonstrate clear links to published research, critique the research and integrate it into their proposed idea or solution.

 

Getting Started:

If you have never presented at a symposium before, here’s how to get started in this challenge …

1. Identify a simple problem in real life that could be solved in a novel way. We encourage you to find the problem from the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals.
2. Research the problem to clearly define all aspects of why, how and what is occurring, looking for parts of the problem that might be solved in a new way using some technology or programming.
3. Start developing ideas on how you might solve this problem, brainstorming different types of technology, other creative solutions that might already exist and/or algorithms and programming that might provide a good solution that addresses the needs that you have identified earlier.
4. Build your unique solution, checking to see what competing ideas are already on the market.  Ensure your document the process of your design, changing your ideas, keeping references to any sources of information you use, etc.
5. Prepare your research paper, clearly showing your research, development of ideas and specifications of the final solution, along with any evaluation you may have done of your solution.

Note: the solution does not need to include any model or prototype.  If you do have a model or prototype, please include video or photos of this in your presentation.  There is no facility for demonstrating your model or prototype during the presentation (use the Creative Design Challenge if you want to demonstrate your final solution).

Already Experienced:

If you are already experienced at research and presentation, here’s how you can become more effective in this challenge …

1. Ensure you clearly define the task that you are attempting to solve or assist with.  Provide references to solutions that have already been tried or competing ideas and evaluate them looking for the gaps that your solution might fill or perform better at.
2. Include more extensive evaluation of your ideas and solution, exploring the limitations and strengths in detail and how these might be improved.
3. Use statistics and graphs to represent actual data, providing further validation to your idea or solution.

Paper Publication

• The presented papers will be published in the book, Emerging Technologies and Applications (ISSN: 2207-3892).
• Submit your paper in a MS word file, referring to the ‘Student Symposium Sample Papers‘.
• Email the file to j.jo@griffith.edu.au by Jan 31, 2018.