The ‘Hanwha Science Challenge 2018’, the top contest for science gifted students for future Nobel Prizes sponsored by the Hanwha Group, was held at the Hanwha Human Resources Management Center in Gapyeong, Gyeonggi Provice from August 21st to August 23rd.
According to Hanwha Group, the grand prize for this year’s contest was awarded to two students from Gyeongsang National University College of Education, Park Jun and Kim Sung-min, who proposed efficient prevention of winter frost accidents and ice accidents by devising “research and application of switch that does not generate standby power” using the volume expansion of water.
“In the future, I would like to become an engineer who studies new electric materials for semiconductors. By receiving this prize today, I am taking a step closer to my dreams,” said Kim during his speech. “I had a lot of worries about the discomfort in my daily life, and it was hard to make my thoughts into concrete results, but thanks to this competition, I was able to solve my problems,” said Park.
All teams participating in the finals have incorporated their own unique ideas for saving the Earth according to the theme ‘Saving the earth’. For examples, one team devised countermeasures to prevent environmentally friendly soil loss by using the principle of pupae making use of the flower chafer beetle larvae’s excrement. Another team created an eco-friendly micro-dust removal device that uses the principle of wind direction by using the direction of rotation of the blades.
A total of 1,248 students from 624 teams participated in the ‘Hanwha Science Challenge 2018’, recording the largest number of participants in history, and over the past eight years, the cumulative number of participants surpassed 10,000.
The grand prize winner is awarded 35,598 dollars in prize money, and the total amount of prize money is about 151,291 dollars. In addition, those teams who win a bronze prize or higher will be exempted from the document screening process when applying for employment or an internship at Hanwha Group. Furthermore, those teams who win the silver prize of higher will receive special overseas trip to prestigious universities and institutions in Switzerland and Germany.
