Innovation Award
The Innovation Award must be applied for. This award is intended to reward the team with the most innovative development. Does your boat include a novel engineering creation? Whether it be a new propeller design, a new hull design, the development of a new drive system, or special features on the solar module, SOLAR SPLASH wants to know about it.
To apply for the Innovation Award, please prepare a narrative, not to exceed 250 words, that describes your team’s best innovation this year. Include in your narrative:
- Description of the advancement
- Why the advancement is valuable, including quantifiable metrics if possible
- Brief story of how the team first came to imagine this advancement or see a need for it
Send the narrative in an email to hq@solarsplash.com. The narrative must be received by noon Eastern Daylight Time on Wednesday (during the competition). The innovations will be validated and evaluated, and the team with the best innovation will receive the Innovation Award. Good Luck!
Design Awards
A significant part of the student’s learning occurs during designing, testing, and analyzing the specific sub-systems on their boats. Design Awards complement the competitive events, but are not a part of the overall scoring at SOLAR SPLASH. Trophies are awarded for outstanding accomplishments in the following areas:
- Hull design
- Electrical system design
- Solar system design
- Drive train design
Each of the design areas above are judged by a team of local volunteers with technical backgrounds during a period of approximately a day and a half. All teams are interviewed for each award area during the event by the judging teams.
Judging teams for each specific system will visit each team’s paddock and ask to speak to a team member (or two) who is familiar with the specific system. During this conversation, the judges will be assessing the overall design process. This discussion may include the design objectives, analyses, construction, testing, and design process that led to the final design. The judges will also evaluate team member’s knowledge of and ability to clearly communicate the details of the system design. Each design award is given to the team that the judges determine have the best design process and final design in each of the four design areas, as described by the team’s presenting members.