SNRSI has been supporting the Engineering Innovation Challenge since 2019. This competition is organized by Science Centre Singapore (SCS) with the support of the Institution of Engineers, Singapore (IES) and the Ministry of Education is done to increase the awareness on ionizing radiation in the environment and our everyday life. Through this competition we hope that the participants will develop a deeper understanding of ionizing radiation, in particular, the presence of background radiation. As part of the competition, the participants will also be offered valuable prototyping and product development skills. Over the years, many participants have benefited while working alongside mentors from the industry and gained valuable lessons throughout their competition journey.
In EIC 2019, participants in categories 3 and 4 were tasked to design and build an ionizing radiation detector prototype that is capable of measuring the background gamma radiation accurately within a reasonable amount of time. About 150 teams took part in the challenge, with many exceeding expectations. After a series of intensive testing and judging, Team Rad-X managed to clinch the top prize in category 4. Following the competition, the team was offered an internship at SNRSI to continue their development of the detector’s design.

For EIC 2020, in keeping with the theme of radiation in everyday life, and to commemorate the United Nation’s declaration of 2020 as the International Year of Plant Health, participants were tasked to explore or make innovative improvements on the application of ionizing radiation in the area of food security. Participating teams were also provided with an improved version of the Rad-X radiation detector and tasked to help map out the background radiation levels of publicly accessible parts of Singapore.

In the year of 2021, we will continue the theme of exploration into ionizing radiation. The theme of the competition will be released at a later date. A virtual briefing and Q&A session between the organizers and the participants was conducted on 5th May. For more information about the competition or the briefing, visit the official Engineering Innovation Challenge website here