Age of aquarius

The outcome of the 2017 edition of Fly Your Ideas, announced at Airbus headquarters in Toulouse on May 17, has provided Dr Dorrington and his team plenty of food for thought as they work with the next batch of students to formulate the next big idea in aviation and aerospace.

Dr Dorrington says RMIT has been keen to push the competition to students, not just in aerospace-related courses but also those studying areas such as business, design and the physical sciences.

And one of the lessons from this year’s competition – where the five finalists worked in Airbus labs for a week under guidance from a subject-matter expert at the company to build a prototype of their project – is that the ideas should ideally be something the students would be able to bring to market.

“We are going to be continuously pushing the competition in years to come but I think we need to approach it from a different angle, something slightly more orientated towards students who want to form these business initiatives that Airbus might want to support,” Dr Dorrington tells Australian Aviation in an interview after the competition.

“We are going to modify our tack slightly more towards bringing an idea to market, not so much just on winning the competition.”

In parallel to this push, Dr Dorrington says Fly Your Ideas fits perfectly with RMIT’s plans to develop business incubators or accelerators to try to get graduates to take charge of their own ideas when their time at the university ends.

“Recognising there is a kind of gap between leaving here and getting a job – some of them go to companies of course getting employed but others want to create their own initiative,” Dr Dorrington says.

“The university is trying to create this kind of halfway house where we support graduates after they leave, which is a very interesting development.
“I think it is really needed actually, right across the world so I am very pleased that RMIT is doing this.

“This Fly Your Ideas thing fits perfectly in it.”

Dr Dorrington said areas to explore for future years also includes attempting to secure a patent for any ideas brought to the competition.

TEAM AQUARIUS MAKES A SPLASH

The runner-up project from Team Aquarius, comprising PhD candidate Anil Ravindran, aviation business student Kerry Phillips and aerospace student Philipp Klink, featured a removable fire retardant tank capable of carrying a 30,000l payload that could be quickly installed into an A400M to fight bushfires.

The trio argued it would help address a need for better collaboration on fire fighting. Further, the aircraft could be used on other missions when not engaged in the business of fighting fires, improving the utilisation of the asset.

Ravindran said it was thrilling to have done so well in the hard-fought competition that attracted more than 350 entrants from around the world, and involved three rounds of assessment.

“Being in the top five is great, but the runners up was something that we are very happy to have achieved. It’s amazing,” Ravindran said shortly after the presentation ceremony.

“Hopefully we can pursue this further in the near future and expand it in the form to projects we can conduct and hopefully collaborate with Airbus.”
Phillips said during her team’s 30-minute presentation to the jury the project had a deeper significance for the team, given the catastrophic 2009 Victorian bushfires that resulted in the deaths of 173 people.

“The Black Saturday fires was all very personal to us, it was less than 100km from where we live now and it cost the Australian government US$3.3 billion to the economy,” Phillips said.

The Black Saturday fires were all very personal to us. KERRY PHILLIPS

“We need to start the conversation, the conversation that currently we don’t have a solution and what we have is not enough to fight what we need to.”
Patron of Fly Your Ideas and Airbus executive vice president for engineering Charles Champion, who was part of the four-person jury, says the Aquarius team’s concept has great potential.

“It is one of those which stands out in terms of really having a global view, understanding a global problem, and seeing what is my contribution, what could I actually offer in order to solve that problem,” Champion told reporters after the awards ceremony.

“The Black Saturday fires were all very personal to us.”
Kerry Phillips

“From that point of view I think the Aquarius team is outstanding in terms of their idea.”

I think the Aquarius team is outstanding in terms of their idea. CHARLES CHAMPION

Team Aquarius’s runner-up placing continues Australia’s, and RMIT’s, great run at this competition. A team from Queensland University won the inaugural Fly Your Ideas in 2009, while an RMIT team was runner-up in 2013.

COMPETITION GROWS IN STATURE

The global competition began in 2009 and is run every two years. It was granted UNESCO patronage in 2012, and offers students an opportunity to work with a team of aviation professionals on real-world challenges, going beyond the aircraft itself. The competition is open to students of all nationalities and all disciplines – from engineering to marketing; science to design.

It is this week-long experience with Airbus that Dr Dorrington sees as the most valuable aspect of Fly Your Ideas, given the resources of the giant airframer available to the five finalists and the inspiration that can be drawn from realising a concept or kernel of an idea can indeed be turned into a desired product or service an airline, airport or aerospace supplier would have a demand for.

Nowhere is this more evident that in the University of Sao Paulo’s entry into the 2015 competition.

Called ReTrolley, the team designed an in-flight cart that would more quickly separate waste items such as plastic, paper and leftover food that finished runner up.

And things moved swiftly from there. In December 2015, Retrolley was part of Airbus’s six-month BizLab accelerator program, where the airframer supports innovators and startups (from both inside and outside the company) looking to put their ideas forward and bring them to market.

The first RE-trolley prototype was built in April 2016, with a second prototype tested on an easyjet aircraft in the second half of 2016.

And recently ReTrolley won a Crystal Cabin Award in the greener cabin, health, safety and environment category at the 2017 Aircraft Interiors Expo held in Hamburg and has been the prototype has been presented to more than 20 different airlines for their feedback.

A member of Team ReTrolley, Gabriel Reis, says he hopes it will soon appear on commercial flights around the world.

“I dream of the day that I will travel in a plane where I will see a ReTrolley in use,” Reis says.

“One of the best feelings for designers is to see their creation in action.

“One of the most difficult problem that we encountered was the can crushing mechanism. It needed to be lightweight, efficient and sealed for both noise and spillage. We spent hours on the four-bar mechanism development and even more hours in the manufacturing process.”

Airbus system engineer for galley and stowage architecture Matthias Reiss, who has been working on ReTrolley says the idea is “innovative and simple at the same time.

It addresses the major needs of airlines regarding cabin waste management and can be integrated into the galley of an aircraft without any modifications. Moreover, its modularity allows a flexible adaption to the specific airline needs,” Reiss says.

Dr Dorrington says ReTrolley’s experience shows that although winning and the resultant prize money – €30,000 (A$45,000) for the winner and €15,000 (A$22,500) for the runners-up – is great, just getting into the final offers plenty of rewards for those prepared to stick it out.

And RMIT’s plans for incubators and accelerators of its own help channel students’ enthusiasm at a time when many might feel that their ideas has already been done or won’t work.

“My personal view is that we are having to work harder to convince people that they can make a difference,” Dr Dorrington says.
“The reason I like this competition is because this is an opportunity for them to potentially break through that massive quagmire and potentially make a difference.

“I think the commercial world is so aggressive and tight at the moment the chance of getting a product off the ground are very difficult. I think the students think it is even more difficult.

“I wouldn’t say it is naturally occurring in that age range because I think that age range is exposed to, they have come from a computer web era, where there is tons of information and you can very quickly get disillusioned because you think that has already been done and you give up.

“That suggests we are doing something right but ultimately I don’t think it is the winning that is important, it is actually getting into that final round that is the important thing.”

Dr Dorrington says getting to the final round – 600 teams get whittled down to five over three rounds of assessment – “inspires them to believe they can take a product forwards”.

“We need to go back to basics again and say to students we are looking for really young innovators who really want to take a product to market. Even if you don’t know what it is yet we will help you find it,” Dr Dorrington says.

“I don’t think we want another generation of students just entering the competition just for the purpose of getting the prize.

Despite being a competition, Klink said everyone has enjoyed meeting members of the other teams.

“We have met them only a week ago but they have all become friends of ours,” Klink said.

Airbus’s Charles Champion says the 2017 edition of Fly Your Ideas was the best one yet and paid tribute to all teams involved.

“I found it was the best Fly Your Ideas this time because the ideas were really diverse and all of them were good,” Champion says.

“Whereas in previous editions we had sometimes several ideas around the same subject like new materials or energy saving, which is good but you have to have some renewal.”

Champion was equally enthusiastic about the eventual winners of 2017 Fly Your Ideas Team DAELead from The University of Hong Kong for its design of a personal storage compartment located underneath cabin floor of a commercial airliner.

The clever use of the space may be used as an added perk for premium economy passengers or deployed on specific seats where storage is restricted, such as the bulkhead rows.

“The airlines will look at it,” Champion says.

“I’m sure we will get questions in the coming hours, days, weeks. Is it true? What can you propose? And so on and so forth. It opens a new possibility.”
“When a new possibility opens in the cabin then you can think differently on how you use your cabin, your storage and also the experience for the passenger.”

“I think this is going to open some space of investigation and innovation in the passenger experience area.”

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Meet the ideas

Winner:
Team DAELead, (The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)

The team proposed using the space in between the cargo ceiling and passenger floor as a private stowage compartment. The space could fit a laptop or backpack, be lockable for security and help add extra stowage for passengers in certain seats. It was not envisaged every seat on the aircraft would be able to have its own private stowage compartment as the horizontal beams running across the fuselage do not correspond with the seat pitch of each row of, for example and Airbus A320.

Runner-up:
Team Aquarius (RMIT University, Australia)

The team designed a system of modular containers that could be quickly loaded onto an Airbus A400M tanker transport to fight bushfires. Further, it would require little modification to the aircraft. The trio from Melbourne also outlined a business model where an operating company would fly a fleet of three A400Ms on behalf of the United Nations.

Other finalists:
Team SkyVision (University of Surrey, United Kingdom)

The team proposed installing a downwards facing camera in the belly of an aircraft to collect earth observation data. The data could then be sold as an alternative to satellite imagery, helping airlines generate additional revenue. It would offer lower cost options of obtaining satellite imagery that is available currently. Simulaton data showed the vast majority of Europe would be covered with 30 airplanes from three airlines.

Team Nevada (Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria)
The team proposed an automated ground taxiing system at airports, with aircraft to be guided before takeoff or after touchdown via an algorithm and series of sensors around the airfield to determine the most efficient route. The concept would help reduce taxiing time, helping airlines cut fuel consumption and emissions, as well as improve on-time performance and lower costs.

Team PassEx, (Institut d’Administration des Entreprises – IAE, France)
The team developed a new boarding concept where passengers are assigned a boarding number based on the size of their carryon luggage, ensuring the available overhead locker space is used more efficiently and speedier boarding of the aircraft. As an aside it was the first time a team from Toulouse had made the final of the competition.

The four-person jury comprised Champion, Morgan State University assistant vice president for international affairs organisation Yacob Astatke, European Aviation Safety Organisation (EASA) chief engineer Pascal Medal and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) assistant programme specialist Rovani Sigamoney.