A team of University of Guelph engineering students placed first overall in the consulting engineering category at the Ontario Engineering Competition held in London this month.

The provincial competition involves students from 15 engineering schools competing in six competition categories: parliamentary debate, engineering communications, junior team design, senior team design, consulting and innovative design.

As part of the consulting competition, fourth-year students Mike Beswick, Caleb Vandenberg, Nick Walters and David Wood had to research and design a solution to a technical problem. They did not build a physical prototype built, but gave a detailed presentation on their design choices, implementation plan, finances and feasibility.

Competitors were asked to solve the problem of poor sanitation and lack of access to clean water in the capital city of Ethiopia. The solution had to be easy to implement and economically feasible.

The U of G team won top prize for designing a community-scale anaerobic digester. They are now eligible to compete at the Canadian National Engineering Competition to be held March 10 to 13 at McGill University.