Joining teams from from Brazil, India, Italy and Malaysia for the final, the RMIT’s Team CLiMA will now travel to France to present its ideas to a jury of Airbus and industry experts in Toulouse on June 12. The winning team will receive a prize of €30,000 and the runners up €15,000. The winners will be announced in Paris on June 14.
This is the second time in three biennial challenges that an Australian university has made the finals, with Queensland University winning the inaugural Fly Your Ideas 2009.
Team CLiMA passed through to the final with its proposal for the development of aircraft fuelled by a blend of sustainably-produced liquefied biomethane and liquefied natural gas (Bio-LNG). The team is composed of Australians Katherine Grigoriou and Mark Spiteri as well as South African Martin Burston, Canadian James Herringer and the Team Leader from Malta Luke Spiteri all studying aerospace engineering at RMIT.
This year’s challenge inspired more than 6,000 students from 82 countries to register with 618 teams submitting a proposal. The proposals had to cover one of six themes identified by Airbus as key 21st century challenges for a greener aviation industry.
In addition to the main challenge, there is a competition for the best Fly Your Ideas video that the public can vote for online at www.airbus-fyi.com. The shortlisted video teams are from Australia, China, Germany, Kenya and Spain.
Fly Your Ideas is a biennial international student competition held by Airbus. The first competition was launched in October 2008 challenging teams of students from around the world to develop innovative ideas to shape the future of aviation.
