The winning students had to come up with an innovative and sustainable way to improve the thermal comfort of houses in Vietnam.
Rural housing in provincial Vietnam can be hot and damp, but an innovative project developed by University of Sydney advanced engineering students may provide the solution to keeping them cool and dry. A team of six students calling themselves the 'DragonFly' has won this year's cross-Tasman Engineers without Borders (EWB) engineering challenge by designing an innovative and sustainable way to improve the thermal comfort of houses in An Minh in the Kien Giang province of Vietnam. Their approach included three components - wooden louvred windows, activated carbon-based dehumidifiers, and a solar chimney to provide year-round airflow, all at a cost of only $20 per household. During the challenge the team built scale prototypes of each component then tested their models in a wind tunnel. The team, Gordon Liang, John Mai, Rebecca Tan, Chantelle Thistleton, Warren Dang and Sammy Cheung competed against respective champion groups representing the ACT, Victoria, Queensland, Northern Territory, South Australia and New Zealand. The province is part of the Mekong Delta region in the Southern tip of Vietnam, and is one of the most productive agricultural regions in South East Asia, providing up to 50 percent of Vietnam's rice requirements. Despite its importance it remains one of the poorest regions in Vietnam, lagging behind the rest of the country in areas such as education and infrastructure.
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