Engineering Newcomer 2025: Here Are the Winners
On November 5, CADENAS and the norelem ACADEMY awarded the title of Engineering Newcomer 2025 at the FMB – the trade fair for mechanical engineering. For more than 10 years, the competition has been recognizing the best young engineering projects in collaboration with MDESIGN and the Federal Working Group of Technical Colleges. This year, the contest once again attracted numerous submissions from the fields of renewable energy, disaster protection, automation, smart living, and e-mobility. Pupils or students from technical colleges, universities of applied sciences, or universities had the chance to have their self-developed project or final thesis evaluated by an expert jury. The winners of the top three places were able to showcase their projects to a wide audience at the FMB and received attractive cash prizes for themselves and their educational institutions.
Congratulations to all the winners and a big thank you to all participants for their creative and innovative contributions, which made the jury’s decision anything but easy.
1st Place: EcoSort
First place went to Marko Nikolic, Fabio Riedel, and Fabian Tratz from Rudolf-Diesel Technical College in Nuremberg with their intelligent waste bin EcoSort. It automatically sorts waste into paper, residual, and organic waste using AI-based image recognition. Once the waste is inserted, the container moves in front of the camera and takes a picture. The AI, trained with over 4,500 images, achieves an accuracy rate of 98%. A display and a web interface show fill levels and system data in real time.
2nd Place: Mobile Manipulator (Exoskeleton)
Second place was secured by Markus Langer and Stefan Danzer from the Technical College in Munich. The duo developed the Mobile Manipulator (Exoskeleton), which is worn like a backpack and relieves the user during physically demanding tasks. A 40-volt motor transmits torque via a planetary gear to a cable drum, allowing tools such as hedge trimmers to be positioned precisely. Motor control is handled by an Arduino and a control unit on the shoulder strap. The load of up to 20 kg is ergonomically distributed across the entire back, significantly reducing strain, especially during overhead work.
The Exoskelett distributes the weight of the hedge trimmer across the entire back.
3rd Place: TIM – Tiny Injection Machine
Jannik Fischer, Armin Genga, and Thomas Schmidberger from the Technical College in Mindelheim took third place with TIM – Tiny Injection Machine. This compact injection molding machine produces finished components from plastic granulate in a short time. A water-cooled mold and three heating elements ensure even heating and rapid cooling. TIM can even be operated via smartphone. Inside, two stepper motors do the work: one feeds the molten material, while the other opens and closes the mold via a ball screw spindle; control is conveniently managed through an ESP32 web interface with start/stop and jog functions. To ensure the machine runs robustly and precisely, the team switched from initial 3D-printed parts to CNC-milled components – resulting in greater rigidity, better fits, and durable contours.
TIM – Tiny Injection Machine.
Impressions from the Award Ceremony
