XJTU students display their works.

From July 15 to 18, the finals of the 11th National Undergraduate Mechanical Innovational Competition were held at Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Nine entries from Xi'an Jiaotong University (XJTU) in Northwest China's Shaanxi province successfully advanced to the second stage of the national finals, and all of them won first prizes.

Combined with the 10 second prizes and one third prize received in the first stage, XJTU received the highest number of first prizes and total awards in the competition, marking the fifth time in a row that the university has achieved this dual honor. Additionally, as the chairing unit of the Shaanxi regional committee, XJTU received the Outstanding Organization Award.

This year's competition focused on the design and manufacture of small specialized machines for planting, managing, and harvesting domestic grains and 10 types of vegetables, as well as on improving the performance of bionic machinery with the "Bionic Frog" and "Bionic Butterfly".

The competition attracted 5,600 teams from 730 universities across 32 regions, including Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the Harbin Institute of Technology, Tianjin University, and Beihang University, involving more than 100,000 students.

Through preliminary and first-stage finals evaluations at the provincial, municipal, and autonomous region levels nationwide, 198 works from 129 universities were selected to move on to the second stage of the finals.

After intense competition involving live demonstrations and defenses, the judging committee conducted a comprehensive evaluation based on the novelty, innovation, and practical significance of the topics, the rationality and quality of the design drawings, and the production and functionality of the works. A total of 168 first prizes (accounting for approximately 3 percent of the total projects) and 267 second prizes (accounting for approximately 5 percent of the total projects) were awarded.

The National Undergraduate Mechanical Innovational Competition is a major student discipline competition supported by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance. It was also included in the first batch of the National Higher Education Discipline Competition Rankings in 2017. The competition is held every two years.

XJTU places great emphasis on the competition, with nearly 300 students signing up to participate in the most recent edition. Over the course of nearly two years, the students completed their projects, which greatly enhanced their innovative design skills and improved their ability to combine theory with practice.