Held on January 21, 34 school students from throughout Queensland and South Australia became engineers, accountants, safety officers and sales gurus in a bid to win over judges from competition sponsors Caterpillar of Australia Pty Ltd.
The week before, the groups of year 11 and 12 students were given one week and a box of Lego with which to construct their machines. Students were required to design a unique machine for a given open pit or underground coal mine, giving consideration to the machine's operational characteristics, maintenance schedules, expected performance outputs, cost, the environmental impact and occupational health and safety factors.
The competitors thought of everything, from a toll free number, 1800-SCOOP-ME, to operator creature comforts as standard.
The four groups of students pitched their ideas to Caterpillar representatives and in their winning presentation, group members Felicity Reinke, Camille Ramsbotham, Gail Belcastro, James Marshall, Tanzih Ahmed, Patricia Norton, Phillip Suthers and Chris Bourne described how a Sonic Storm was "brewing".
The given mine parameters were for a 3m thick horizontal coal seam covered by 250m of sandstone overburden with 2,200m long faces. The required coal mining rate was 3 million tonnes per annum.
In their presentation students described their system, which uses conventional chocks and an AFC for coal clearance. Instead of using a shearer to cut coal, the design proposed using high frequency sound to vibrate the coal off the face onto the conveyor.
The required coal cutting frequency and wave length is to be determined through analysis of coal properties including density and ash content.
The competition, run by the Cooperative Research Centre for Mining Technology and Equipment (CMTE), is held annually as part of the AusIMM Australian Student Mineral Venture (ASMV) and requires students to draw on experiences gained throughout the ASMV.
The two-week program is currently touring mining and processing facilities in central and south-east Queensland, exposing students to mining personnel and careers in the minerals industry.
