The CAR Engineering Challenge 2012, sponsored by Isuzu, concluded on Tuesday, 22 January 2013, at GM’s Extreme Track facility in Port Elizabeth where three graduate engineering finalists battled it out for the opportunity of a lifetime – a career as an automotive engineer. CAR and General Motors are proud to announce Michael Garces de Gois from Stellenbosch University as the overall winner of the competition. He will join GM’s Graduate-in-Training Programme that starts in March.

After two days of in-depth interviews, challenges and meetings with GM’s senior executives, the three finalists, Michael, Conrad de Kock (University of Pretoria) and George Krapohl (Central University of Technology, Free State) had to present their final-year projects to a panel of judges, which appointed the winner based on the project’s innovation, technical excellence and relevance to the automotive or production sector. Michael’s final-year project, titled The Design and Development of a Diesel Engine In-cylinder Pressure Measurement System, showed clear goal formulation, technical depth and results that were realistic and well correlated. However, the main reason the project swung the judges’ decision in his favour was the fact that not only did Michael research, design and purchase the components needed, but he also assembled and tested the system on an engine-test dynamometer, with excellent results. Michael’s project will be featured as a technical article in a future issue of CAR magazine.

The competition was aimed at final-year mechanical, electrical, industrial and mechatronic engineering students, who had to submit a one-page abstract of their final-year project to be eligible. A weeding process narrowed down the contestants to three finalists, all of whom had projects of a very high quality. “It’s extremely difficult for engineering students to break into the automotive engineering field – opportunities in South Africa are limited,” explains CAR’s technical editor, Nicol Louw. “We have long wanted to get involved at university level to encourage prospective automotive engineers and to give them a platform to launch their career. The Challenge, sponsored by Isuzu, allowed us to do just that.”

Edgar Lourencon, outgoing President and Managing Director GM Sub-Saharan Africa, said GM is proud to partner with CAR’s innovative initiative. “We regard our investment in education as critical in terms of helping to improve the skills base of the country and also in terms of the importance of promoting education as the most important tool to uplift the community (education of employees, their children, GM South Africa Foundation, CSR projects and GM Childlife Foundation). During the past 10 years alone, GMSA has invested over R110 million in bursary and scholarship programmes, and has also partnered with universities to support key skills projects.” Lourencon added that it is a great time for Michael to start his career at GM, as the launch of the much-anticipated sixth-generation Isuzu KB is only two months away.