Projects

Every semester, the Design Challenge offers different projects. A good example of a typical Design Challenge project, is OTEC. It contains all aspects of a Design Challenge project:

• Practical solution for a real world innovation problem
• High-tech (design skills)
• Entrepreneurship (management/business skills)
• Multidisciplinary (and complex problems)
• Cooperation with the client

The OTEC team consisted of 4 students (1 Mechnical Engineering, 1 Aerospance Engineering and 2 Technology, Policy and Management students). The OTEC project was executed in colaboration with Ecofys as client.

OTEC stands for Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, which is a new way to generate energy. Ocean water near the equator has a temperature at the surface of 27 degrees Celsius and at a depth of one kilometer, the water has a temperature of 4 degrees. The water from below is pumped to the surface, using a patented airlifting method, to generate electricity.