From July 18 to 22, 2017, the Fifth National Undergraduate Water Conservancy Innovation Design Competition was held at Dalian University of Technology. Three representative teams of undergraduates majoring in hydraulic and hydro-power engineering from the School of Civil Engineering of Tianjin University won two grand prizes and a second prize, creating the best record of Tianjin University in this competition.

The National Undergraduate Water Conservancy Innovation Design Competition, regarded as the “Olympiad” for national college students in the field of water conservancy, is held every two years. It aims to encourage undergraduate students in related fields to actively participate in innovative practice and training, where they can develop team spirit, innovation consciousness and practice ability, thus cultivating innovative talent for development of water conservancy.

The competition, hosted by the China Association of Hydraulic Engineering Education (CAHEE) and the Professional Teaching Steering Committee of College Majors Related to Water Conservancy of the Ministry of Education, and undertaken by Dalian University of Technology, attracted 212 teams from 84 universities including Tianjin University, Tsinghua University and Wuhan University.

The theme of this competition was “water +”. Focusing on “water + life”, “water + ecology”, “water + energy” and “water + saving”, the candidates were supposed to use a variety of techniques to implement innovative designs and production of real objects, adhering to the concept of sustainable development and attaching importance to water saving as a priority, green ecology, social harmony and the application of new technology.

From the perspective of subject-selection planning, structure design and production the judges evaluated the works on their reasonableness, innovativeness, practicability, and the application of advanced technology. The candidates’ answers and on-site product presentation was also be taken into judgment.

There were in total three projects from Tianjin University participating in this competition, of which An Automatic Sand-Filling Simulator for Sea-Banking made by Liu Yongpeng, Dong Zhiming, Su Zhe, Ding Hao and Wang Huiqi under the direction of Qi Lan and Li Qi, and A New Type of Controllable Water-Proof Steel Dam made of Liu Hewei, Jian Ning, Jiang Jinhao, Zhu Xiaodan and Zhang Jingyu under the direction of Ma Bin, stood out from the competition and won grand prizes after going through an on-site presentation, preliminary questioning and grand-prize questioning. A Solar Depth-Control Horizontal Pushing Device for Urban Landscape Watercourses made by Liang Jianyu, Wang Haobai, Shi Bowen, Deng Fei and Lei Kun under the direction of Zhang Chen won the second prize out for their excellent performance. Meanwhile, Qi Lan, Li Qi and Ma Bin were awarded Excellent Supervisor, and Tianjin University was awarded as an Excellent Organization Unit.

In this competition, students from the School of Civil Engineering demonstrated the University motto “Seeking Truth from Facts” and the school spirit of rigorous scholarship with their remarkable performance. They lived up to the reputation of the school and teachers by their outstanding performance, fully showing the innovative spirit and practical ability of students from Tianjin University.