Students from Egypt's GUC Win First Prize in International Communications Engineering Competition

Communications Engineering students from the German University in Cairo (GUC) have nabbed themselves first prize at international design competition focused on the design of antenna systems, the IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation and USNC-URSI Radio Science Meeting. Quite the hefty name, eh?

The contest judges its contestants on their abilities to measure and demonstrate properties of an antenna system, and packaging it in a digestible way so the run-of-the-mill non-antennae expert can get it, in layman's terms. According to the IEEE website, the top 6 teams receive up to US $2,500 in travel funds to attend the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Symposium in Atlanta, Georgia. The team ranking firstreceives a cash prize of US $1,500 and an opportunity for the project’s report to be published in the IEEE AP Magazine.

The students, Monica Wasfy William, Nada Khaled Sayed Abdelhadi, Samar Abdelatty Sayed Elmeadawy and Yasmine Abdalla Zaghloul, were up against contenders from Portugal, USA and Colombia. The team’s project was under the guidance of Faculty Advisor Hany Fathy Hammad, and their entry was titled - wait for it - 'DIY Antenna Characterisation System Using Universal UHF RFID Hemispherical Dome'. According to Professor Hammad, the project comprised of a system that elaborates the antenna function, which he highlights is key to communication equipment to “transmit and receive electromagnetic waves” for wireless communication systems.