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Flowery Branch, Ga., Lake Lanier
- April 6, 2002 - Windsurfing on a sailboard made
out of paper, a team of chemical engineering students
from the Georgia Institute of Technology raced
away with $15,000 today at Energy Challenge '02.
Georgia Tech placed first among seven
university teams at the national, college-level event
held at Lake Lanier's Van Pugh Park North Saturday. The
race was the final test for the sailboards that were
crafted by the teams during the past eight months. It
accounted for 20 percent of the total points needed to
win Energy Challenge 2002.
Overall scoring for the event was
based on best paper sailboard performance during a timed
race, written reports, gross weight, material composition,
tensile energy absorption, stiffness and novelty of design.
Miami University (Ohio) took second
and $10,000 and the University of Maine finished third
and collected $5,000.
Ga. Tech's champions included Gonzalo
Stabile (Argentina); Philip Timm (Marietta) and Yianni
Eillis (Marietta).
"Our emphasis was to design
a sailboard that was 100 percent recyclable and make
it as environmentally sound as we could," Stabile
said. "We went for simplicity and tried to minimize
the use of energy in production. At first we thought
our sailboard might struggle when we saw what other teams
had done, but we were glad it sailed just fine."
Energy Challenge '02, sponsored by
the U.S. Department of Energy, Institute of Paper Science
and Technology (Atlanta, Ga.), Hercules, Inc. and WindSense,
allows engineering students to work with energy efficiency
and waste minimization concepts that have real applications
in the pulp and paper industry.
The teams designed the sailboards
exclusively from paper products, including corrugated
paperboard or linerboard. Commonly used paper chemicals
were allowed in the finishing and bonding of the board.
Each of the schools received a $2,000 "start
up" grant to assist with the funding of their project.
From there, it was up to them to fashion the sailboard.
The purpose of Energy Challenge '02
was to encourage innovation, increase interest in science
and engineering and promote awareness of energy efficiency,
manufacturing design, recycling, waste minimization and
pulp and paper industrial processes.
The competition supports DOE's Agenda
2020 - a program to enhance the economic competitiveness
of the U.S. forest products industry and to help the
pulp and paper industry reach the vision of more energy
efficient manufacturing processes in the year 2020.
Editor's Note: Additional information
about the contest can be found on the Energy Challenge
Web site at http://www.ipst.edu/energy_challenge.
Photos and a press release are available online or can
be e-mailed to media by request at the conclusion of
the event. For any questions about Energy Challenge,
contact John Horst at 303-275-4709.
RESULTS:
| Team |
Total Score |
Race Overall Place |
| 1. Ga. Tech |
68.14 |
1 |
| 2. Miami |
61.74 |
5 |
| 3. Maine |
61.71 |
7 |
4. NCSU-Pulp and Paper Science
|
60.91 |
3 |
| 5. UCF |
60.87 |
4 |
5. NCSU - Chemical Engineering
|
59.82 |
2 |
| 6. Mississippi State |
28.39 |
6 |
*Best sailing time - 01:40, NCSU Pulp and Paper Science
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