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Ocean Thermal Energy Ecopark for Curacao wins Design Challenge!
In January 2011, 17 students from various faculties of the Delft University of Technology started the Design Challenge in 4 different teams. Based on the Stanford University’s ‘Design School’ formula, the students combine their entrepreneurial and design skills to develop practical solutions for innovation problems of 3 different companies.
The company Bluerise has challenged two teams with different projects. One team focuses on building a room size demo of an Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) power plant. OTEC is a method for generating electricity using the temperature difference between the hot surface water and the cold deep water in the ocean. The OTEC demo should illustrate operational feasibility of the complete system and it triggers the team to come up with innovative ideas and to directly apply them in practice. Four other students are challenged to design one of the World’s first Ocean Ecoparks for the island of Curacao and to find out which technologies can be brought into practice in an economical and ecological manner. Read more...
The company Ideal&Co and the foundation Cycling out of Poverty have challenged 3 Industrial Design students and a Management of Technology student to develop given ideas into a bicycle prototype for Africa. The challenge includes making a plan for manufacturing and marketing of the final product, which should be sustainable and affordable for Africa. Read more...
The Science Centre Delft, which is situated in the former building of the faculty ‘Mijnbouwkunde’ in Delft, wants to teach visitors about (sustainable) energy and encourage active participation in a sustainable energy project. A team of 5 students with different study backgrounds is challenged to design a local energy generator that generates energy for the Science Centre in a sustainable way. Moreover, it should encourage visitors of the Centre to actively participate in generating energy. Read more...
On Thursday June 16th 2011, four Design Challenge teams presented their results to the participating companies, fellow students and a jury. This final event: ‘Your Success Starts Today‘, was organized together with the Sustainable Business Game, a master course also provided by the DCE.
Only one team could be the winner. The jury, consisting of Dap Hartmann (TU Delft) and entrepreneurs Fiebke op de Macks (MAXAM Medical) and Thijs van Oorschot (Nightbalance), decided that this was the Bluerise team that worked on the project ‘Ocean Thermal Energy Ecopark for Curacao’. The team, coached by Akos Wetters (linked to Delft Centre for Entrepreneurship, Delft University of Technology), designed an industrial/research park for Curacao for Bluerise BV and Curacao Airport Holdings. The Ecopark Curacao is an industrial park for high-tech production and research facilities with a sustainable character. It is also designed to create economic growth and provide education on what kind of opportunities renewable technologies have to offer.
The jury was impressed by the total concept of the Ecopark Curacao. Cold water is pumped up from deep sea and subsequently applied in different stages during which the temperature rises slowly. After this the water is returned to the sea. What concerned the jury slightly is that plans are to use this project to turn the airport of Curacao into a hub. This means more flight movements which conflicts with the sustainable character of the Ecopark project.
The team that worked for Ideal&Co/Cycling out of Poverty on an innovative bicycle design for Africa, may not have won the Design Challenge, however, this team, coached by Patrick van der Duin (Delft University of Technology, faculty of TPM) also participated in the African Bicycle Design contest in Nijmegen on June 10th as a TU Delft representative and won this contest with their multi-purpose bicycle trailer! For more information, visit www.wiki-bike.com.
Please visit www.designchallenge.tudelft.nl for more information.
List of projects of the Design Challenge 2010-2011 quarter 2
