Indonesian students shine in car design contest

Nine teams of Indonesian students won seven awards in the first-ever Asian car design competition held at the International Sepang Sircuit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from July 8 to 10.

The students who took part in the Shell Eco-marathon came from the Surabaya Institute of Technology (ITS), the University of Indonesia (UI), the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) and Gadjah Mada University (UGM).

They captured all three prizes in the Urban Concept Combustion category, won first place in the Gasoline Fuel Award and the People’s Choice Award and were finalists for the Autodesk Design Award.

“We are so proud that Indonesian students could shine in this international competition … despite the fact that it was their first time to design and build vehicles,” said Darwin Silalahi, president director and country chairman of PT Shell Indonesia.

The Shell Eco-marathon has been an annual event in Europe since 1985 and since 2007 in the United States. The competition challenges students to design, build and drive a vehicle that operates with a very limited fuel supply.

The students could take part in the Prototype or Urban Concept competitions. In the Prototype competition, they were challenged to create a futuristic and efficient vehicle with an innovative design. In the Urban Concept competition they had to make a “roadworthy” fuel efficient car for everyday use.

The participants were allowed to use available conventional energy resources – such as diesel, gasoline and liquid gas – as well as alternative fuels.

ITS’ Sapu Angin 2 team invented a car that ran for 237.6 kilometers on a single liter of fuel, breaking this year’s US record of 185.87 km in the Urban Concept Combustion category. The ITS team also brought home the Urban Gasoline Fuel Award.

UI’s Yellow Makara and Zamrud Khatulistiwa teams won the second and third place in the category and got in the big five teams that passed the tight technical and safety assessments.

ITB’s Exia won the People’s Choice Award and more than 65,000 people voted for the design’s technical innovation.

Yellow Makara and another UI team, Dazzling, were among the five finalists of the Autodesk Design Award. The category includes innovative research in ergonomic, esthetics, material selection and technical elements of the design as well as its originality.

“We combined futuristic designs with ethnic elements,” said team leader Tri Cahyo, a third year student at UI’s Mechanical Engineering Faculty.

“Although we never took part in similar competition, we were challenged to apply what we learned from our studies,” he told The Jakarta Post.-- JP