Case Study

On the 2nd of March the local BEST group of Aalborg held the annual Case Study. The competition was held in the busy hall at Fibigerstræde 15. Mærsk had provided the case and were also the sponsor of the event.

40 people in groups of four were signed up for participation and everyone came with open mind, high spirits and lots of ideas.

The Judges

The judges for the competition consisted of three people from Mærsk, Hans-Henrik Kogsboll (Head of Production Technology), Sara Sparre Kofoed (Production Technology Engineer) and Hans van Dongen (Lead Production Technologist). Aalborg University was also represented by Jens-Bo Holm-Nielsen (Head of Center for Bioenergy and Green Engineering).

The Case

The explanation of the case, started by introducing the Halfdan oilfield, which is located in the Danish sector of the North Sea. In this area Mærsk uses horizontal drilling which is more efficient than vertical drilling because of the lower number of wells. When a well starts to loose pressure it becomes difficult to pump up the oil.

Therefore it is necessary to build another horizontal well in the vicinity of the oil well. This well is called the “injector” and the other well where the oil is pumped from is the “producer”. The idea is to pump water into the injector which will spread out through the sediment layer which should cause the pressure to build in the producer. The idea works, but it does have some flaws.

If there is a shortcut (connected crack) between the injector and the producer the water will simply flow from the
injector and out of the producer and will simply be a big expensive circulation of water. It is very difficult, especially at long distances in the tube, to locate these cracks and also to plug them.

To questions that had to be answered:

1)       How do you locate the crack?

2)       How do you plug the crack?

Brainstorming
After Hans-Henrik had explained the case, the groups went on to the brainstorming and idea phase of the competition. Each group sitting at their own table had three hours to solve the problems and after this time they should be able to do a ten minutes presentation which should consist of innovative and fresh ideas. Because of this the groups were also banned from using the web and had to solely rely on their engineering background.

Presentations
The presentations all went very well. The ideas included everything from ultrasound detectors and normal garden hoses to time-delayed concrete and RFID tags. While the groups were presenting, the judges were taking notes and listening intensely. After each group had been in the ten minutes spotlight the judges would ask questions and comment on the ideas, and they didn’t hold back on the critical questions.

The winners

After the presentations dinner was served and the judges had time to evaluate on the presentations and decide upon a winning group. The decision seemed to be difficult as they took their time to decide.

The winners were announced and they lucky group were Mikael Højen, John Andersen, Anders Roland Pedersen and Kristian Kjær Justesen, all from the Energy Department of Aalborg University.

The prize was an adventure smart-box and the trip to Trondheim for participation in nordBEC 2011.

Team Design

The task

The task was about designing and developing a vehicle that would run by using balloons. The tagline was:

“Because we live in a world where gasoline is horrible expensive and the air is incredible cheap.”

Each team got a bag with a variety of materials including milk cartons, foam sponges, balloons and straws. With these materials the teams had to build a vehicle that could travel the longest distance only using the balloons.

Designing and building

The teams had 2.5 hours to complete the task which also included making a presentation about the build and the ideas behind it.

Many different ideas was tried and the general consensus was that the ballons would be used to exhaust air which would drive the vehicle.  As a big surprise to the coordinators some of the groups did not use this approach but instead used the balloons as a big elastic that would, by winding it, cause wheels to spin.

The demonstration and presentation

Each team presented their construction and afterwards they had 3 attempts to travel as far in a straight forward line as possible.

Many vehicles never crossed the starting line because of technical difficulties or simply because of the balloons popping which caused the crowd to break out in laughter.

The demonstrations and presentation was evaluated by the three judges: two BEST members and the head of the School of Engineering and Science, Henrik Brohus.

The teams performance was rated from the following criterias: Distance in a straight line, Presentation, Design, Team-spirit and Aesthetics.

The winners

The winners were Daniel Kjærsgaard, Tobias Markussen, Jakob Kristoffersen and Niels Langhoff from Global Business Engineering. They made a vehicle propelled with four balloons which could reach a distance of about 4 meters.

The prize was movie tickets and a trip to the Nordic final in Trondheim.

Jeppe Jørgensen & Simon Hartmann  Have
BEST Aalborg.