East coast brings A-game to Unearthed

Over two consecutive weekends in August, Unearthed hosted hackathons in Sydney and Hunter Valley. The outcome saw record numbers and some extraordinary innovations for the resources sector.

Preventing SAG surge – solutions revealed at Unearthed Sydney

The Sydney event was held at Fishburners co-working space. Challenges were provided by South32, NSW Government and Newcrest Mining. The challenges focused on a range of topics including maximising plant production via data analysis, historical data visualisation, prediction of SAG mill surge events, and grinding circuit optimisation.

The SAG challenge proved to be a very popular one, with a staggering 12 submissions. SAG mills are prone to surges that can bring a processing plant to a grinding halt and can incur high operational costs (around $100,000 per hour). Three winning submissions were revealed, taking 2nd Prize were Team Perry’s Fan Club, the Young Innovator Award went to Team Beaver and the People’s Choice Award was won by Team 10hr Flight.

Team DataCake took out top prize after taking on South32’s challenge with their innovative solution to maximise alumina plant production through analysis of thousands of production plant data channels.

All about automation at Unearthed Hunter Valley

Unearthed travelled further up the coast to Hunter Valley for the first time in 2016. The event was held at the new co-working space, Dantia Smart Hub.

Challenges were provided by CMOC-Northparkes Mines and NSW Government.

The challenges focused on ore tracking between site and port, automation of image analysis of Hylogger drill core data, and improved scheduling of autonomous loaders.

Image was everything, when Team Arnut was awarded first prize for the automatic image segmentation algorithm they developed to identify the dominant features, defined by RGB values, on high-resolution drill core images.

Team CompSoc took both 2nd Prize and the Young Innovator Award for their efforts in auto mining optimisation.

September – Unearthed San Francisco

The next Unearthed Hackathon will leave Australian shores and head to San Francisco in September 2016. Cornerstone support will be provided by Caterpillar, global manufacturer of construction and mining equipment. In the lead up to MinExpo, the hackathon will be held from 23 – 25 September. Silicon Valley’s startup sector will partake in this exciting 54-hour mind mine.

The Unearthed innovation events showcase some of Australia’s top technical talent and identify promising prototype solutions for real industry challenges.

acQuire is a proud supporter of the 2016 Unearthed innovation events, which can benefit mining companies globally through the rapid development of prototype technologies and ideas aiming to enhance the efficiency and competitiveness of the natural resources industry.