Thirty Queensland Year 11 and 12 students took part in the challenge, sponsored by Caterpillar and held at the University of Queensland during January.

Working in four teams, students had to create unique mining machines for a hypothetical open pit coal mien or underground coal mine. The underground mine and production specifications were set at a realistic three metre thick horizontal coal seam covered by 250 metres of sandstone overburden with 2,200m long faces. Required coal mining rate was 3.0 million tonnes per annum.

During the two week program students visited mining and processing facilities in central Queensland and had to design a machine based on their experiences. Design presentations had to include detailed analyses of operational characteristics, maintenance schedules, expected performance outputs, costs, the environmental impact, and occupational health and safety factors.

The winning machine, the Dermzscht Shearer by Evolution Inc, used a chock roof support system but the conveyor included a secondary collection device to reduce wastage of coal.

The shearer comprised of magnesium rotary blades with tungsten carbide cutting tips. The control box was filled with Helium to minimise combustion potential. With a stronger but lighter titanium drive and shaft the Dermzscht experiences less downtime making the machine a solid and profitable investment.

Attached to the conveyor was a Sonic Softner which weakens the rock by sending sound waves. This in turn weakens the coal seam and the shearer experience less wear and tear reducing production time. Attached to the Sonic Softner is a series of video cameras linked to an air-conditioned control box to help reduce time spent on the longwall, hence preventing health hazards to employees.

The winning team said the product was extremely adaptable to many existing and possible future improvements which will help reduce wear and tear and increase profitability.

Other entries included the Percusive Coal Shearer by Snare Engineering; the Siamese Shearer by Creative Resource Mining Innovations and the Continuous Miner by Mata-More-4-Us.