UL Demko Sponsored and Hosted Regional Final for the Danish Science Cup
UL Demko hosted Regional Final for Science Cup April 8, 2015
The Science Cup is a science competition for 18 year old students, organized by The Danish Society of Engineers. UL sponsors the competition and we have introduced safety as a new criteria when evaluating the projects along with the more traditional criteria.
It is very inspiring to see the creativity from the kids and it is very rewarding to support events like this. This year Fleming Hegner, Lab Leader UL Demko was the leading judge.
This year’s projects were new and innovative
This year’s winning team had developed an ink that becomes transparent when heated to 60C/140F for 10 minutes. The idea is to increase the value of study books. The first student put notes and marks in the book. When done with the topic the notes are erased simply by putting the book in the oven and the sales value in increased. The color in the ink they had extracted from beetroot and they clearly had focus on safety of the product.
Some teams had very good ideas but ideas requiring insight beyond what they can manage right now. One team had discovered that the sound properties in a fruit change as the fruit rips. Their idea is to use a smartphone to measure the fruit in the supermarket. Their challenge is the transducer. The loudspeaker / microphone in the phone can’t do the job. Another team had discovered that the humidity in a microwave oven has a pattern that can be used to determine when the food is ready, not too warm and not too cold. They had developed the sensor system and software for the solution. Their challenge is getting their technology into the oven. The ideas and creativity were very impressive. One team had used existing technology to create new solutions, discovering they could use an awning mechanism to create a window cleaner.
Author: Finn R Andersen