From July 16th to 19th, 2024, the Central China regional preliminary round of the 18th CIMC "Siemens Cup"(CIMC) was held at Three Gorges University. Fifteen students majoring in Automation from the School of Computer Science of our university formed five teams and participated in the competitions in the area of discrete industry automation (logical algorithm) and process industry automation. Facing the unpredictable difficulties and problems, the team members kept calm, analyzed carefully, and made reasonable adjustments to get the solution through solidarity and cooperation. Eventually, all the teams in the discrete industry automation (logical algorithm) won awards (1 first prize, 2 second prizes, and 1 third prize), and the team in the process industry automation event won the Excellence Award, achieving a breakthrough of zero in such discipline competition for our university.

Figure 1 Central China preliminary round teams and award certificates

The following August 11th to 15th, 2024, the national finals kicked off in Huzhou, Zhejiang. The finalists were the top 20% of the first-prize winners in each sub-region, and each university was limited to only one team to enter each track. The finals were held among 756 universities, 5,861 teams, and more than 25,000 teachers and students from many well-known universities across the country, including Zhejiang University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan University, Harbin Institute of Technology, and Hunan University, etc. After exciting competitions, our university's JHL team (Wang Hao, Zhang Jing, Hua Yanglian) won the national first prize, which also made it the best result among Wuhan universities in the discrete industry automation (logical algorithm) track. Professor Fan Jinrong also was honored the title of Outstanding Instructor of the year.

Figure 2 Teams in the national finals and their award certificates

The Innovation and Entrepreneurship School and the School of Computer Science of our university placed great importance on the organization, management, and service guarantee for this competition. By organizing teachers and students to participate in the competition, the "teaching-learning-research-competition" talent cultivation model for the Automation major was fully demonstrated in the discipline construction. The Automation will continue to improve the talent cultivation model and commit to cultivate high-quality compound talents with a strong sense of responsibility for society, an innovative spirit, an entrepreneurial awareness, and practical abilities. The discipline competition has enhanced students' innovative practical abilities and communication skills, and promoted exchanges and cooperation between our university and other institutions. The spirit of rigor, struggling and never giving up from our students have also been unanimously praised by the organizing committee.

It is well known that the "Siemens Cup"(CIMC) is a national-level discipline competition under the strategic cooperation framework signed between the Ministry of Education and Siemens AG. It is guided by the Department of International Cooperation and Exchange of the Ministry of Education and jointly sponsored by the Chinese Association for Simulation and Siemens (China) Co., Ltd. Currently. This contest item has become the largest and highest-level national Class A competition in the field of intelligent manufacturing in China. The competition adopts the practical engineering problem and scientific research projects from enterprises as the competition questions, uses the functional industrial equipment and industrial environment as the competition venue. The engineering standards of industry are employed as the assessment and scoring indicators. The students' comprehensive abilities to solve complex engineering problems have been significantly improved.

Figure 3 List of award-winning students