Sharjah: The American University of Sharjah announced today that its Team Cr8 is the only team from the Arab world to move on to Round Two of Airbus Fly Your Ideas Competition. \

Selected out of the 600 teams from universities across the world who had submitted their project ideas in round one of the competition, AUS was selected to compete against 100 teams. The AUS team will now compete for recognition at a global level with their innovative ideas to shape the future of flight.

The contest will challenge students worldwide to develop ideas for a more sustainable global aviation industry. Unesco has given patronage to the 2013 edition of the Fly Your Ideas competition to help advance engineering education which is focused on finding solutions for a sustainable future.

The three-member AUS Team Cr8 consists of engineering students Nabeel Kassim, Bharath Raghavan and Sandhya Raghavan.

Their concept which made it to the second round is about capturing electricity and reducing its wastage as it is produced by pressure exerted during the course of operation of an aircraft. The team’s concept is titled “Energy harvesting using piezoelectric floor panels to increase aircraft sustainability and efficiency by integrating ground and in-flight harvesting mechanisms.”

Round Two teams have until April 12 to explore, test and develop their concepts and to deliver a 5,000 word report that includes charts, calculations and a short video. While the idea remains in the hands of the students, an Airbus mentor and expert are assigned to each team to support, inspire and challenge the competitors. More than 200 Airbus mentors, assessors and experts are involved in the process of selecting the five final teams who will present their concepts to a panel of Airbus and industry experts at Airbus in Hamburg, Germany on June 12.

The awards ceremony will take place in Paris on June 13 at the Unesco headquarters. First prize winners will receive €30,000 and the chance for the winning team to host an ‘innovation week’ on campus run by Airbus experts. The runner up team will win €15,000.