University of Bath team hoping to win 'Heart Hackathon' in worldwide competition
It's the world's first design challenge to make a working prototype of an artificial heart - and a 30-strong team from the University of Bath are taking part
A team of students from the University of Bath are taking part in a global contest to design, prototype and build an artificial heart.
The 30-strong group, made up of electrical, mechanical and robotics students, are hoping to become the 'Heart Hackathon' champions, when the finals come around later this year in Texas.
Team Bath Heart (TBH) are already looking towards October - when the finals take place - and are already hard at work trying to make their artificial heart come to life.
They're the UK's only entrants into the competition, working against teams from countries as far away as Sweden, Egypt, the USA and even Australia, who are all taking part.
Artificial hearts are already used in medicine to treat patients with certain cardiovascular diseases, usually while waiting for a donor heart to be found, or to help their heart recover.
Building real-world skills through competition
Bristol Uni say the Heart Hackathon is a great opportunity for their students to build real-world skills through competition, which will help to nurture the next-generation of medical and cardiovascular innovators.
They've got a tough challenge ahead, but when it's built, the Total Artificial Heart will do exactly what a 'native' heart does.
Fleur Upton, the team’s Project Manager, says they are gaining real-world problem-solving experience, while helping to find solutions to advanced heart failure.
She says: “I gained experience of project managing technical teams while on my placement and Team Bath Heart allows me to apply that in a real-life situation, and in a setting that could make an impact on healthcare and patients in the future.
“Everyone on the team has the same end goal – to create life-saving technology.”
Team member Francisco Nabais adds: “We are lucky to have a lot of really interesting student teams here at Bath, but in our case the fact our work could potentially help seriously ill people is very appealing.”
The artificial heart the Bath team is designing is comprised of a range of cutting-edge medical-grade materials, robotics technologies and features including automatic flow rate adjustment to respond just as a real heart does.
Dr Katharine Fraser, a Senior Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering and the team’s academic supervisor, says: “It’s inspiring to see the work the team is doing and the approach they’re taking. My own research is in the field of artificial heart and vascular technologies, and while they have existed for a few years now it’s wonderful to see how the team is approaching the same problems we researchers are investigating.
“Medical engineering and technologies like these have massive industrial potential, so as well as gaining great problem-solving and management experience in entering the competition, the team are also building really relevant skills for their future careers.”
Bath's strong engineering history
The University of Bath has a strong history of engineering - and according to the stats released on the 2023 Complete University Guide, the faculty were 1st in the country for Architecture, while in the 2023 Guardian University Guide, their overall ranking for Mechanical Engineering saw them placed as second in the country.
Team Bath Heart is hoping to build on the success of other student engineering teams at the University of Bath.
These teams have done many things, including the building and competing in competition series for motorsports, motorcycle racing, air and marine drone racing, and in rockets.
Fleur said: “There’s a strong history of successful student engineering teams at Bath, and we want to make sure the team is sustainable and keeps entering this competition year in, year out.
“We are aiming to build new relationships with sponsors and companies locally and beyond who can help us financially or with in-kind support such as materials, software licences or expertise that we can learn from and apply in our artificial heart.”
You can find out more about Team Bath Heart here.
You can find out more about the competition here.