Green Team Twente won third place at the Shell Eco Marathon, Europe’s major energy-efficiency race in London. On Saturday, after a thrilling race at the track in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, the team were briefly in first place, but they eventually dropped two places in the Urban Concept hydrogen class. The University of Twente’s team was one of two medal-winning Dutch teams in London. Twente’s hydrogen car, H2.Zero, drove the equivalent of 850 kilometres on one litre of fuel, a new Dutch record.
During the final day of the Eco Marathon, in which 4,000 students from thirty different countries took part, there were exciting contests in each of the various classes. The results that Green Team Twente achieved in London brought them a team record and national record, but they were not quite enough for outright victory. The first place went to a French team. Nevertheless, this excellent result shows that the students from Twente have made great strides. Moreover, in recent years, no valid result has been achieved in the Eco Marathon.
Pride
“We came very close to winning, and we are very proud of this result” says Tessa de Koning Gans, speaking on behalf of Green Team Twente. “We’ve shown that we rank among the top teams in Europe. The race did not go entirely smoothly as we encountered some technical problems on the first day of racing, but we came up with some really impressive solutions. We have worked our fingers to the bone and, in a sense, this definitely does feel like a victory. All the more so since we have broken the national record and have cast off the legacy of some poor performances in past years.”
ABOUT GREEN TEAM TWENTE
Green Team Twente 2016 consists of 17 students from various disciplines. The majority of them are from Electrical Engineering or Mechanical Engineering at the University of Twente. However, the team also includes students from the Industrial Design, Chemical Engineering, Advanced Technology, Creative Technology, and Industrial Engineering and Management programmes. Students from a range of studies can take ‘Green Team Twente’ as a minor.
