Middlesex University students competed at the prestigious WorldSkills event while staff also ran the lab technician competition

Two Middlesex University students won Gold at the WorldSkills UK finals after entering for the first time.

Third year BEng Mechatronics and Robotics students Omar Maaouane Veiga and Arun Ananthakumar (pictured above) won the top prize in the Automation competition at last week’s finals in Manchester.

They first trained together for the qualifiers in June, and have been preparing in earnest for the finals since September, doing past WorldSkills Automation finals as practice exercises.

“Each year they change it – it’s been getting steadily more complex as the years go by,” says Omar of the competition problems, which are set by MDX’s Professor Mehmet Karamanoglu along with those in the other Design Engineering disciplines.

Automation is the control of machines and processes by independent systems through a range of technologies. Over two days, the competition tests participants’ logic, design and fault-finding skills in areas including devising, building and testing pneumatic and electro-pneumatic circuits and Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) industrial computers, using sensors to build automated systems, mechanical assembly and wiring, and adding new functionality and operations.

Taking part, getting the opportunity to work with very valuable and sophisticated machines is “incredibly beneficial to us as aspiring engineers,” Omar says, but also for their teamwork skills: under the constraints of the timed task, one of the pairs sets up the PLC while the other one programmes it. It has stretched their knowledge as the competition introduces technologies they haven’t reached yet in the syllabus. “Most of the hardware we are using is for the first time,” says Arun. 

Their victory belies the fact that they found the competition “super-stressful,” Omar says. They finished the second, third and final task out of the five with just a minute of time to spare, and on the fourth one ran out of time to implement everything within the brief.

The pair are considering training for the Mechatronics or Industry 4.0 events for a future WorldSkills UK as these are also categories in the biennial international competition. Through competing at this year’s final they have met senior staff at competition sponsors Festo and Omron, giving them a head start for applying for jobs in their field – although Omar modestly adds getting through Year 3 of their course is no mean feat. He said: “It’s another mountain to climb, the assessments are ruthless.”

“My message to other students about entering competitions and following their dreams is to begin as soon as you can. Grab every opportunity you see on your way, and you'll see how easily you can progress. Remember that pressure creates diamonds: so as long as you put in the work consistently, you'll be able to do anything you want.”

Omar Maaouane Veiga

Arun who is from Sri Lanka says studying at MDX is something “totally different, a new environment for me. As an international student, I’m leveraging my skills and experience.” He’s amazed at how the university has access to every possible piece of equipment and robotics-related technology. Outside the classroom, he’s the men’s Athletics Captain for the university. He hopes to go into a career related to AI or machine learning.

Omar, who grew up in Barnet and studied at nearby Compton School says that robotics is his passion. “Since Year 7 I remember learning about electronics in my free time, building with components I bought from Amazon,” he says, and he’s assembled robots in his bedroom since then. After enrolling at MDX, “robotics went from being what I did in my spare time, to doing it all the time,” he says. Both students take online courses beyond what’s in the curriculum which MDX recommends for all engineering students to build up their skills.

Competitors in the Automation event including Omar and Arun on the far right

“Having won this prize, I feel more motivated than ever to keep pursuing my engineering career” Omar says. “Now that I further honed my hard and soft skills through such an arduous period, I feel I can take on anything I can set my mind to."

Two other MDX students in the WorldSkills UK finals were Camila Rey da Rosa and Juan Enrique Gonzalez who have both gained MSc degrees in Mechantronics and took part in the Industry 4.0 competition. MDX staff also ran the Lab Technician competition at the finals in Manchester.