RP teams dominate 2013 Shell Eco-marathon Asia off-track awards

MANILA, Philippines - Philippine representative teams dominated the off-track awards of the 2013 Shell Eco-marathon Asia, garnering three citations across six categories in the renowned annual competition that challenges students from around the world to design, build, and drive vehicles that exemplify smarter mobility.

DLSU Eco-car Team ICE from De La Salle University took the Communications award with their creative and effective public awareness on saving fuel, sustainable mobility, and driver education, among other issues. The team successfully geared their initiative toward the youth — utilizing social media, campus events, road shows and partnerships with brands as well as industry bodies, which helped garner a strong footprint in educational institutions, TV, radio and the Internet.

Team Aguila from the Mapua Institute of Technology clinched the Technical Innovation award. The team scored highly due to a winning combination of extensive research and smarter mobility collaboration with industry experts; originality in technical solutions such as utilizing a dog clutch and multi-plate clutch combo and derailleur chain transmission; and overall execution, keeping in mind driver ergonomics and sustainability through the use of rattan, a lightweight indigenous material, for the car cockpit, backseat and footrest, all contributing to fuel-efficient driving.

Team Lahutay 2 of the University of San Carlos in Cebu took second place in the Shell Student Energy Challenge, a new award category introduced this year, which invited the participating students to share their thoughts on a new energy future, or how the world can meet its changing energy demands, in the form of an infographic.

“The off-track awards are a meaningful affirmation not just to the individual student teams, but for the entire Philippine contingent to the 2013 Shell Eco-marathon Asia,” says Ronald Suarez, Shell NGO and stakeholder relations manager of Pilipinas Shell. “It is a fitting start as well to the much-anticipated and highly important role that our country will play in the upcoming competitions.”

In February 2014, the Shell companies in the Philippines is bringing the global fuel and energy-efficiency campaign in the country, hosting the Asian leg of the Shell Eco-Marathon in Manila until 2016.

The winning Philippine teams formally received their trophies and cash prizes from Pilipinas Shell officials during the recent handover ceremony held at the Manila Hotel, with Shell Malaysia Ltd. country chairman Iain Lo as special guest along with representatives from Shell Philippines’ event partners: the Department of Tourism and Manila Ocean Park.

“From the very successful and stellar run of the Shell Eco-marathon Asia in Malaysia for the past four years, we at the Shell companies in the Philippines are extremely excited and looking forward to upholding this tradition of our smarter mobility and global energy campaign,” adds Suarez.