“Fuel Cell Box“ students awards in North Rhine Westphalia
Hürth, Juli 22nd 2009
“Fuel Cell Box“ students awards in North Rhine Westphalia In 2008 and 2009 HyCologne sponsored the NRW-based contest, in which more than 200 school teams took part, both morally and financially. The “Fuel Cell Box" contest is meant to familiarize school students with the technologies of the future: hydrogen and fuel cells.
At the closing ceremony of this year’s NRW students’ contest „Fuel Cell Box“ on June 22nd the NRW minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Christa Thoben awarded prizes to five student groups. The ceremony took place at the logistics centre of Hoppecke Batterien GmbH & Co. KG in Bad Wünnenberg-Haaren. The first prize of the contest, which focused on hydrogen and fuel cell technology, was given to a team of the Inda-Gymnasium in Aix-la-Chapelle. Second place, with two identical scores, was awarded to work groups from Aloisiuskolleg in Bonn-Bad Godesberg und from Ingeborg-Drewitz-Gesamtschule in Gladbeck. All members of the three teams received professionally designed fuel cell-driven vehicle models from minster Thoben.
Like the years before the contest was organized by EnergyAgency NRW and h-tec GmbH under the patronage of minister Thoben und aimed at familiarizing school student with the future technologies of hydrogen and fuel cells. The subject of this year’s contest was the efficient use of innovative technology in transport logistics. In February, a preselected choice of the best 20 out of 200 registered groups were given a basic construction kit – the „Fuel Cell Box“ by the minister. The students were to develop a fuel cell-driven forklift truck model from the elements contained in the box. The newly conceived vehicle should follow the example of real-life fuel cell-powered forklift trucks as those developed by NRW-based companies and research institutes, and should fulfil comparable tasks. The five ultimate winners were chosen from these 20 groups.
