Imagine Cup 2008

Having paid a short visit to the finals of the Imagine Cup 2008 - as well as working across the office from the folks organising the UK's contribution to the whole shindig for the year, I thought I'd share a few of the more interesting entries I came across in this annual student technology competition, with a 2008 theme of 'Imagine a world where technology enables a sustainable environment'.

Project SOAK

Overall winners, and a group of thoroughly nice chaps, the team behind Project SOAK decided to have a crack at reducing some of the water wastage used in agriculture (70% of water used on the planet goes into agriculture, don'tcha know?).



A range of sensors, displays and automated irrigation/hydration systems ensure that water isn't just needlessly dumped on ground that doesn't have enough - and also ensures that dry areas get enough of the stuff, so that crops don't wither away and die. It even ties in with mapping software, weather reports and SMS (for those emergency reports). Pretty cool stuff.

AcidRain

Ah, the Irish - everyone loves the Irish. These chaps, I believe, showed so much dedication to their project and faith in their work that they could easily have won the overall prize.

Their project, AcidRain, consists of a 'one size fits all' conversion kit which can get any diesel engine running on just vegetable oil - better for the environment and certainly better for the pocket. They're using Windows CE for the whole system - and no, Windows crashing wasn't the reason a tow truck had to come out at one point during their journey.

Their journey, that is - from Ireland all the way down to Paris. In their own car, which they'd fitted with their vegetable oil system. Hardcore.


_{The journey}

Team Austria - Photography

All of the entries for the photography competition came up with some impressive stuff, but my personal favourites were the folks from Austria. I'd recommend you view Team Austria's Photos yourself, complete with obligatory environmentalist sublines. I can't pick a personal fave, but here's just one example of their work:



City Rain

Built by some absolutely crazy Brazilians, City Rain is a SimCity-esque game focused around urbanism and sustainability. There's a quick video below, or you can just download the game and have a quick play yourself.



TreeTalk

Team TreeTalk from Korea literally listen to trees. Seriously. Apparently the electrical impulses produced by a sick tree are different those produced by a healthy tree, and by feeding these impulses into an algorithm they've invented, they can tell the difference, and monitor the health of a forest remotely. Leet or what? I get how all the technology works - but how on earth did they find out that trees produce these impulses in the first place?

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That's that, you might want to browse the main site for details of some other cool stuff that people have made. I'll possibly be entering next year with a cool little idea I've come up with, assuming I can fit it to the theme and find a team to build it with me (along with the time myself!) - more on that if I do get around to it - would rather not publish the idea right now.