A team of students took home the 2019 Engineering Newcomer Award, earning them €2,000 in the process, thanks to their innovative light and durable thermostatic generator that turns heat into clean electricity. norelem, global standard components specialists and creators of the Engineering Newcomer competition, presented the award at the Motek Trade Show in Stuttgart, Germany.
The project, named Ina’lite, is the brainchild of Okpamen Obasogie, Benedict Usifoh, Efenudu Hermans and Osasumwen Obasogie from Kware State University. The 1st place generator can be used to operate LED lamps and charge mobile phones via a USB connection.
Working with CADENAS GmbH, the Federal Working Group for Technical Schools and MDESIGN, norelem’s ‘Engineering Newcomer’ award looks for the best design projects from engineering students across the globe.
“We decided to award Ina’lite with the first prize because it solves a very real challenge. There are still many areas in the world that suffer from not being able to afford or even have access to electricity, especially in countries with fewer resources. With this generator using standard components, the students have shown that we can take a throwaway energy source such as heat, and turn it into something useful,” said CEO of norelem, Marcus Schneck.
The second place award went to Albin Wolfersberger and Tobias Zehnder from the HTBLuVA Salzburg. Their thesis looked at a self developed aluminium tray press that recycles raw material aluminium. With the new method, costs, energy consumption and CO2 emissions can all be potentially be drastically reduced in comparison to how aluminium is currently produced.
Matthias Hengge, Gabriel Eugler and Alexander Stoll from the Technikerschule Allgäu in Kempten took third place for their EasyBoat project. This flow optimised boat drive can be used for various boat types and the integrated solar panel achieves an increase in running time of around 10% when sunlight is available.
“Now in its sixth year, the Engineering Newcomer competition gives young engineers the opportunity to demonstrate their talent and celebrate their innovative projects,” said Schneck. “Supporting this young talent is an excellent way for norelem to not only nurture and help future engineers but to put the use of standard components to the test in unique applications.”
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