7 May 2009

NUS Team in Finals of Airbus' Inaugural International Student Competition

Team set to impress judges at Paris Air Show with innovative design for solar-powered aircraft

A team of three students from National University of Singapore's (NUS) Faculty of Engineering has made it through to the final round of Airbus' Fly Your Ideas competition for students from universities worldwide. NUS will be competing for the top position with four other teams from Australia, the Czech Republic, Spain and the US.

The NUS team, Solaire Voyager, comprises team leader Louis Lee Wee Boon, a first year Masters student in Materials Science and Engineering, together with team members Muhammad Adil and Vignesh Subramaniam, who are both second year undergraduates in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. The team was chosen for its project to use solar cell technology to power aircraft as an eco-efficient alternative to jet fuel. Already being widely tested on cars and boats, the application of the technology for use on aircraft poses significant challenges that the project seeks to address.

Over the next month the five teams in the final round will put the finishing touches to their projects with the help of an Airbus coach. The teams will then be flown to Paris courtesy of Airbus to make their final presentations before a jury of five Airbus representatives and five independent industry experts at the world famous Paris Air Show on 19 June. A first prize of €30,000 will be awarded to the winning team.

The five finalists were selected from 225 teams from 82 countries worldwide who originally qualified for the three-round competition, launched last October. The goal of the competition is to challenge students to come up with innovative ideas to shape the future of aviation. Of the original 225 teams, 86 made it into the second round which began in January, including a total of seven teams from Singapore - making the Republic one of the best represented countries in the competition.

Said Sean Lee, spokesman for Airbus in Singapore, "The number of entries we received from Singapore has been extremely impressive and shows the high level of talent being nurtured at the local universities in aerospace related subjects. The strong showing and the fact that one of the local teams has made it through to the finals is all the more impressive when you consider that Singapore has a smaller student base than many of the other countries represented in the competition."

Said Professor Victor Shim, Vice Dean (External Relations), NUS Faculty of Engineering, "We are extremely encouraged to know that the NUS Engineering team emerged as the best among the Asian teams to make it to the finals. Their effort exemplifies our Engineering students' ability to work across disciplines and combine their strengths to solve complex challenges. This project takes the use of solar energy to another level, by integrating it with aspects of aeronautical engineering, thus venturing into areas that are not well explored. This spirit of exploration is what we seek to nurture in our students as they learn to solve real world problems."

In addition to the NUS team, the other finalists are from Stanford University in the US, the University of Queensland in Australia, Valencia Polytechnic in Spain and Brno University in the Czech Republic.