A team of students from Cranfield University, calling themselves the Wave Whisperers, has won the inaugural Bombora Wave Power Challenge Cup, sponsored by Welsh Government.
The inaugural ‘Bombora Wave Power Challenge’ gathered forty dynamic students from across the UK to battle it out in an intensive technical engineering and water sporting event.
The students were thrown into marine energy challenges, relating to Bombora’s mWave technology, to test their problem solving and innovation skills.
As well as the winning team from Cranfield University, two Pembrokeshire College teams and engineering departments from UK Universities including Bath, Bristol, Cardiff, Exeter, Plymouth and Southampton took part.
Cranfield team won both technical challenges whilst the determined paddlers from Cardiff University’s team, ‘Rhymney May’, triumphed in the kayaking challenge.
Having been put through their paces by the judges and their fellow competitors Andy Jones , the chief executive officer at the Port of Milford Haven, awarded the prizes to the winning teams. He said he was “ delighted to see so many universities taking part in the inaugural event and was thrilled that Bombora had initiated the challenge weekend to promote the industry and commercial opportunities in the region. ”
The objective of the event was to inspire the next generation of engineers, celebrate the beautiful Pembrokeshire National Park landscape where Bombora is headquartered and encourage positive engagement and relationships with industry, academic institutions and the local community as well as promote the commercial opportunities within the marine energy sector in Wales.
The judges, Professor Ian Masters of Swansea University, Paul Ellsmore of ORE Catapult and Cam Algie, Chief Technology Officer of Bombora had a very difficult task selecting the winners from an array of innovative and thought-provoking presentations.
Sam Leighton , managing director of Bombora, said: “ It’s been a wonderful opportunity to welcome the next generation of engineers to this beautiful corner of West Wales and share our exciting mWave Project. All the students participated wholeheartedly, and we hope left inspired and may even consider renewable marine energy as a career path .”
“We have all really enjoyed having the opportunity to share our passion for renewable wave energy and our project as well as inspire these talented young engineers.”
Bombora is currently preparing to install its 1.5MW mWave demonstration project in the Marine Energy Testing Area off the coast of Pembrokeshire, funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the Welsh Government.