The "Earthquake Detector Design Competition" is organized by Faculty of Engineering, The University of Hong Kong (HKU), Hong Kong Observatory (HKO), and Hong Kong Meteorological Society (HKMetSoc), and is supported by the HKU Knowledge Exchange Fund. It aims to enrich students' knowledge in both engineering and meteorology.
All primary and secondary school students of Hong Kong are welcome to take part in the competition. Teams fall into either of the two categories: Junior and Senior. A team should comprise 1 teacher advisor and a maximum of 5 students. A student can participate in only one team, while a teacher is allowed to act as an advisor of more than one team. At most three teams can come from each school. Each team is required to submit one set of deliverables as follows:
| Category | Deliverables | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Earthquake detector | Report and photos | Exhibition | |
| Junior | Design and implementation of an earthquake detector | Documentation on the design and operation of the earthquake detector, how readings can be taken, trial records, etc. | Poster presentation |
| Senior | Design and implementation of an automatic earthquake detector, including hardware and software for feeding data automatically through a computer | Documentation on the design and operation of the earthquake detector, circuits, software, how readings can be taken, trial records, etc. | |
Both Junior and Senior teams should observe the requirements R-01 to R-06 below:
| Reqt. | Description |
|---|---|
| R-01 | The earthquake detector should be capable of detecting the existence of earthquake and report automatically (senior teams) or when checked manually (junior teams). |
| R-02 | There is no restriction on the choices of materials for the earthquake detector. The cost for the design and fabrication of the device, excluding computers (for data archival and analysis, if applicable), should be less than HKD 1500. There will be no subsidy from organizers for making the earthquake detector. |
| R-03 | The report should be concise, preferably with a length of no more than 10 pages (cover page excluded, diagrams included) and in PDF format. |
| R-04 | Digital photos of the earthquake detector should be delivered (in zip format), together with the report, before the deadline of submission. |
| R-05 | Submission of report and photos should be sent to the specified email address, otherwise it will not be entertained. |
| R-06 | Each group is required to attend the project exhibition. Judging will be held during the exhibition. At least one team member of the group must attend the exhibition. They are expected to answer questions raised by the judges and visitors. Details of the exhibition will be provided a week before the exhibition. |
Senior teams should observe the following additional requirement R-07 and R-08:
| Reqt. | Description |
|---|---|
| R-07 | The earthquake detector should be completely autonomous in operation. |
| R-08 | The system should be capable of storing the readings onto digital storage media. |
Registered participants are eligible for attending workshops and visits organized by the HKU Faculty of Engineering, Hong Kong Observatory and Hong Kong Meteorological Society. A tentative schedule of the activities, with highlighted important dates, is tabled in the Schedule page. Attendance certificates will be issued to registered team members and teacher advisors participating in talks and attended the project exhibition with their earthquake detector.
Registration should be completed on or before 2016-10-24[Mon]. Participants can register online. Late registration will not be entertained.
The report and photos of the earthquake detector should be sent to quake@cs.hku.hk on or before before 2017-04-24[Mon] 1700. Late submissions will not be accepted.
The earthquake detector does not need to be submitted until the day of project exhibition.
The judging panel consists of professionals from HKU Faculty of Engineering, Hong Kong Observatory and Hong Kong Meteorological Society. The judging criteria are as follows:
| Criterion | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| J-01 | Research | Content of report, data collection and testing methodologies. |
| J-02 | Innovation | How innovative ideas have been applied in the design of the earthquake detector. |
| J-03 | Effectiveness | How the earthquake detector responds to vibration effectively under different situations. |
| J-04 | Appearance | Does the instrument look sleek, neat and tidy? |
| J-05 | Presentation | Performance in the project exhibition. |
The prizes of each category are as follows:
| Prize | Award |
|---|---|
| Champion | A trophy, a book coupon and a HKO souvenir will be awarded to the team, and a certificate to each team member. |
| First runner-up | |
| Second runner-up | |
| The Most Innovative Earthquake Detector Award | A book coupon and a HKO souvenir will be awarded to the team, and a certificate to each team member. |
| The Most Attractive Earthquake Detector Award | |
| The Most Effective Earthquake Detector Award | |
| The Best Presentation Award | |
| My Favourite Earthquake Detector Award | A certificate will be awarded to each team member |
All participating teams are required to attend the Earthquake Detector Exhibition which is tentatively scheduled on 2017-05-06[Sat] (Time: TBD). Judging will be done in the morning. The results of the competition will be announced in the afternoon, and awards will then be presented. The exhibition will be open to the public. All the visitors can vote for the "My Favourite Earthquake Detector" Award winner. Parents, teachers and students are welcome.