DURBAN: Tarini Nadasen and Nikita Chitanand, 16-year-old Grade 11 pupils at Star College, impressed the judges with their project which generates thermo-electricity using the heat inside a car.
They showed how the heat could be used to charge a battery. The Olympiad is an international high school project competition on environmental issues and is hosted by the State University of New York. It is held annually with participants from 71 countries. This year, 1 100 pupils participated and more than 600 projects were submitted.
The two girls, who returned to South Africa this week, said they were ecstatic as they had not expected to return home with gold.
“We thought up this concept because many countries are experiencing an energy crisis. This means we need to start looking at alternative sources of energy.
“We were sitting inside a car one day and it was very hot. It occurred to us that something could be done with the heat that was not being used,” said Nadasen.
They set to work on their project last year. They said the judges told them they had never heard of the concept and should consider registering a trademark so that nobody stole their idea.
Nadasen and Chitanand said the project had inspired them to consider studying engineering. Star College also excelled in other categories in the competition.
Grade 11 pupils Saanthin Perumal and Ryan Ramiah won silver medals for their projects, and Ayush Chunilall and Sashen Naidoo won bronze medals.