BEST Helsinki organized a local round of nordBEC on December 1st 2010. AaltoBEC (Aalto BEST Engineering Competition), named after our shiny new university, was the second edition of a case-study competition organized by members of BEST Helsinki.

Earlier this year, our members heard a speech on dye-sensitized solar cells and their applications. The presenter had just received the Millenium technology prize, and theme the topic seemed extremely interesting. Our people were thrilled. Maybe other students of Aalto university would be thrilled too?

We decided to build our case-study on dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC). Soon we even had a patron for our competition; Prof. Michael Grätzel, the very father of DSSC and the man who gave the speech mentioned earlier, showed us green light and supported our initiative.
We also found out that DSSC is a hot topic on the industry. Our partners showed great interest in the event and contributed a lot to it. The partners of aaltoBEC were Fortum, ÅF Consults, NAPS Systems, ABB, G24Innovations, and City of Espoo. The event was kindly hosted by Aalto Design Factory.

The task had some spices from each stakeholder. The core were, of course, the novel solar cells, but the industry experts wanted to elaborate a little bit: What kind of new applications could there be? How realistic are the implementations? How well can the teams communicate their ideas? How can DSSC be applied in the framework of public administration buildings?

Yes, the topic was found interesting also by the students of Aalto university. Ten teams of four members each were formed, with students’ backgrounds varying from economics to electrophysics. These teams put their brains together and came up with really different ideas and ways to communicate them. During the day, industry experts met with the teams offering them insight to technology and industry.

Final presentations caused some sweaty hands among the participants, but all teams delivered their presentations without problems. While participants were eagerly waiting for the results, the jury was in a intensive discussion of the outcomes. The competition was though; it took two rounds of voting before the winning trio could was selected.

The winning team presented an idea of using DSSC in schools. They argumented that since the pupils are mostly at their desks, the boards could be transformed into e-ink screens powered by the ambient
lighting of the classroom. The teacher could control the material displayed over-the-air. Such a system would facilitate organizing tests, giving feedback, and it could encourage even the shy to participate. Also, schools could, to some extent, get rid of normal school books. This team, Number Nine, will represent Helsinki in nordBEC.

Other teams did well, too. Prizes were also awarded to teams that shined at presentation skills and at doing a thorough feasibility research. But as one of our supporters noted, it not simply not enough
to have great ideas if don’t know how to communicate them. The same goes the other way, too: if you haven’t done your research, your words will be nothing but hot air.