After intense competitions in twelve major divisions covering Northeast China, the Bohai Rim, Qilu, Yangtze River Delta, South China, South China Sea, Central China, Southwest China, Northwest China, Strait, and Jinling (the capital), the highly anticipated 14th China Marine Vehicle Design and Construction Contest kicked off from August 9th to 10th, 2025, in Wuhan, Hubei (Wuhan University of Technology). The Faculty of Data Science of City University of Macau sent two student teams to participate. Under the guidance of Associate Professor Duan Junwei, the two teams had previously won the first prize and third prize respectively in the South China Division, successfully advancing to the national finals. With their outstanding performance, both teams achieved further success in the national competition, each winning the National Second Prize, once again demonstrating the vigorous innovative strength of City University students in the field of intelligent marine technology.

In the "Intelligent Navigation" track of the national competition, the team led by student Yuan Ziang won the National Second Prize with a solid project design, innovative technical approaches, and an excellent on-site defense. The team members also include Shi Zihan and Shen Xin. Team members also include Shi Zihan and Shen Xin. Their competition entry focuses on the optimization and application of marine intelligent navigation systems, fully demonstrating the team's deep integration and higher standards in both creative thinking and engineering practice.

In the “Design and Production - Water Surface Group” track, the " Water Unmanned Boat Team " led by student Li Jiaxi stood out among many participating teams and also won the National Second Prize. The team members also include four students: Pei Haolin, Guo Yifan, Zheng Wenjun, and Liu Yanyi. Their entry focused on the design and control technology of unmanned surface vessels. In the competition, with stable performance, excellent maneuverability, and innovations in structure and algorithms, it showcased significant technical highlights.

Advancing to the national competition and achieving outstanding results once again not only serves as high recognition of the concerted efforts of both teachers and students, but also demonstrates the remarkable effectiveness of City University's interdisciplinary talent development model. Looking forward to the future, the university will continue to build high-level academic competition platforms, deepen the mechanism of integrating scientific research into teaching, strive to cultivate more high-end talents with international perspectives and breakthrough innovation capabilities, and provide talent support and innovative impetus for the fields of intelligent ocean and artificial intelligence.

the China Marine Vehicle Design and Construction Contest is a comprehensive project guided by the China Association for Science and Technology and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and hosted by China State Shipbuilding Corporation and the China Society for Naval Architecture and Marine Engineers. It is open to full-time undergraduate students from universities and research institutions nationwide, excluding adult education programs. This competition represents the highest level, largest scale, and broadest coverage event in China's shipbuilding and marine engineering sector.

Team Leader
Student Yuan Ziang

Winning the second prize in the "Intelligent Navigation" track this time has injected strong momentum into the team's development. From the incubation of the algorithm prototype to the implementation of the system architecture, the team has gone through more than a hundred times of tackling challenges and technical iterations. Each setback has laid the foundation for a breakthrough, forging the core ability to maintain stability in adversity and seek innovation to break through bottlenecks. The entry, with the optimization of marine navigation algorithms at its core, pioneered a balanced system between practical orientation and technological innovation. Special thanks to partners Shi Zihan and Shen Xin for their research resilience and collaborative spirit throughout the process. In particular, we must remember the precise guidance provided by Associate Professor Duan Junwei at key technical nodes. He not only illuminated the research and development path with his academic wisdom but also served as the strongest technical support during the challenging moments. The competition has profoundly tempered the team's cohesive energy and innovative thinking paradigm, and has also made the career anchor in the intelligent blue ocean clearer and more firm.

Team Leader
Student Li Jiaxi

Winning the national second prize in the "Design and Production - Water Surface Group " track and achieving excellent results again not only confirms the solid achievements of the team's technical research but also expands our cognitive dimension of engineering practice. From the conceptual model to the physical transformation stage, we achieved the optimal balance between lightweight and high performance through continuous experimental verification and performance improvement. After advancing to the national competition, the team further iterated on the physical boat, further innovated the navigation architecture, and developed a new detection algorithm. Special thanks to team members Pei Haolin, Guo Yifan, Zheng Wenjun, and Liu Yanyi for their full collaboration. They each brought their strengths to the table and worked closely together in aspects such as system architecture design, algorithm innovation, control system development, and on-site operations, ensuring the stable completion of competition segments including the operation demonstration and defense presentation for the work. The dedicated support of Associate Professor Duan Junwei has always been the core force driving us forward. Not only did he safeguard our technological breakthroughs with his profound knowledge, but also, in every darkest moment when the team was mired in predicaments, he dispelled the fog with his unique insights and endowed us with the ability to redefine our direction. The truth ultimately engraved in this tempering journey is: when the courage to innovate takes root in the team's cohesion, even the steepest peaks will eventually be transformed into medals of the victors.

Advisor
Associate Professor Duan Junwei

The students' full academic enthusiasm and excellent practical ability demonstrated in this competition, along with their wonderful performance, are deeply gratifying. This is far from an accidental technological breakthrough, but rather reflects the profound accumulation and unremitting pursuit of our university in cultivating interdisciplinary and compound talents. Such competitions provide a precious practice field for integrating knowledge and action, allowing book knowledge to be vividly applied, and at the same time effectively verifying the effectiveness of our teaching. In the future, I will spare no effort to promote students' participation in high-standard competitions, use competition to temper true knowledge, hone abilities in challenges, encourage them to be proactive and brave in making breakthroughs, and commit to cultivating more innovative talents with a global perspective for the cutting-edge development of intelligent ocean and intelligent equipment technology.