The rules of Shell Eco-marathon are plain and simple – the victory belongs to the team whose vehicle uses less gasoline (energy) to cover the defined distance within a specific period of time. The teams compete against one another in two categories: Prototype (bolides focusing on achieving the best results) and UrbanConcept (vehicles which are significantly bigger and must comply with numerous requirements regarding their functionality, design and the type of steering on track.)

‘This year we entered the competition with our vehicle, Orion, in the UrbanConcept category,’ explains Hubert Demianowski, one of SKAP’s team members. ‘After last year’s debut we have improved the design by adjusting it accordingly to the competition’s rules that have changed. Among other things, we modernized the power transmission system based on the original idea of a claw coupling produced by a member of our team. Furthermore, we developed the electronics and cut out the second door. All the modifications we introduced rendered it possible for our vehicle to complete two runs in which we managed to cover 187 and 188 km with 1 liter of gasoline respectively. With this result we ranked fifth among urban vehicles with combustion engines, and second among those fueled with gasoline.’

SKAP turned out to be the best Polish team in this year’s Shell Eco-marathon. As many as 150 teams representing high schools and technical universities from all across Europe participated in this sports event that took place on the Mercedes test track located next to Mercedes-Benz World in Weybridge near London (2^nd-5^th July 2019). Three best teams from both the Asian and American edition also entered this competition.

Orion on the track during Shell Eco-Marathon, photo: SKAP

Orion on the track during Shell Eco-Marathon, photo: SKAP

The Warsaw University of Technology was represented by a team consisting of: Kasandra Krawczyk, Maciej Cichocki, Hubert Demianowski, Kamil Gardyjas, Kamil Gładysz, Bartosz Kątski, Jakub Kośnik, Ignacy Nojek, Natalia Pieśniewska, Marcel Pigoń, Krzysztof Retych and Antonina Waszkiewicz.

Our students are already planning ahead and thinking about the next year’s edition of Shell Eco-marathon. ‘We are strongly motivated to achieve better results and we have already been planning further works on the vehicle so that next year it can cover a longer distance and help us win a higher position in the ranking,’ said Hubert Demianowski.