INNOVACE 2018
Unique student prize, two winning teams
At the second edition of INNOVACE, the award created by ACE Shock Absorbers for young academics, two teams were chosen as equal winners at the awards ceremony in Langenfeld at the end of November. The winning concept designs for a mechatronic holding and locking system were developed by Nico Graßmann and Rick Storm from Fontys Venlo University of Applied Science and Mathias Blessing, Jannik Montag and Chris Taschelmayer from the Georg Agricola University of Applied Sciences in Bochum.
Both teams provided the technical proof required in the tender that their lockable safety gear with integrated damping and a triggering lock via smartphone work. Accordingly, the prize money of 7,000 euros will be split between the two winning teams.
For the first time, foreign universities also took part in INNOVACE 2018. André Weßling, globally responsible for marketing at ACE and one of the initiators of INNOVACE, is delighted with the international participation and the resulting greater response and communication: "Unlike last year's competition, there was greater participation in all phases this year. We communicated with the teams in web conferences and answered queries on the phone and by email through our student trainees."
Overall, the quality of the submissions was so high that it was difficult for the five-member ACE jury to select just one winner when evaluating the challenging and extensive entries. The difficulty was mainly due to the approaches of the teams awarded the INNOVACE 2018 prize. While the work from Bochum follows the classic methodical development approach from mechanical engineering, the solution from the university in Venlo in the Netherlands also includes elements of product design and is freer in terms of form and idea development.
The ACE jury, which also includes two working students, was faced with a stalemate even after intensive discussions and assessments of the work. "This means that there are two equally deserving winning teams this year," explains André Weßling and continues: "The quality of all the entries is so great that we are not worried about the next generation of academics in Europe." pb
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