The role of the external contests for Kanazawa Technical College´s engineering education

Kanazawa Technical College (KTC) is providing hands-on education and promoting to participate in external contests. We introduced the role of contests in engineering education, such as the mini-hydro power generation contest. The mini-hydro power generation contest is not only concentrated on the task of the amount of the power generation, but usefulness of the application of generated power within the local community. Through the contest, students are expected to learn and improve their engineering skills, for example, technical knowledge, communication skill, presentation skill, implementing skill, independence of mind, and spirit of team work. These are the necessary skills for future engineers, and the contest is a good source of training to become good engineer. On the other hand, the contest has merits for the supervisors and the college. The supervisors also have to study outside of their field of expertise with the students; this also helps improve the supervisors´ knowledge and skill set. This experience is fed back into improving the classes and experiments. The lecture method for the contest is different from ordinal classes. We promote independent action of the students, report regular progress presentation, support project management, and feasibility thinking of the students´ ideal ideas. The interviews with the students indicated that the contest have good educational results. The students´ knowledge grew through the participation of the contest and felt sense of accomplishment. This successful experience will lead in helping the students´ confidence in becoming an engineer in the future. We will continue to promote participating in external contest such as the mini-hydro power generation contest and others for the betterment of our student and staff.