Enthusiastic team of Thai students from King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT) garnered 4 awards in a row such as “People’s Choice Award Winner” and 3 major prizes in the international competition in “Solar Decathlon Europe 2019” participated by 19 universities around the world.
KMUTT team ending up with 4 prizes competed with universities in England, Romania, Hungary, Spain, The Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Greece, France, The United States and Italy. Besides, KMUTT team is the only qualified team from Asia to participate in ‘Solar Decathlon Europe 2019’ which was held in Hungary.
Mr. Kasan Chanto, Ph.D. student and KMUTT’s SDE’19 Project Manager said, “The Resilient Nest” was proclaimed as the Winner of People’s Choice Award (which has the top number of votes from people around the world), 2nd prize winner in the category of “Comfort Conditions”, 3rd prize winner in “Neighborhood Integration and Impact” and “Innovation and Viability” respectively.
“THE RESILIENT NEST” or “Ban Rang Nok” is the creation of KMUTT team that has spent around 20 months in sharing ideas to come up with this innovative concept. Its main feature is a modular unit house with functions that can change rooms according to the environment and climate of each country. They have used Thai-style of carved-wooden partition technique, consisting of wood pieces for building walls. The wall interiors have heat insulation to help maintain the temperature inside the house. Moreover, every room is designed to be able to distinguish different singular modules for stand-alone use.
The team, consisting of 43 KMUTT students supervised by their instructors, participated in the competition on June 26 – July 28, 2019 in Hungary. They combined their knowledge and competencies in several disciplines such as Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Control System and Instrumental Engineering, Industrial Education and Architecture and Design. Also, joining this innovation competition will help create knowledge and experience that can be used for future development of Thailand.
KMUTT team as the project owner received a huge support from PTT Public Company Limited, Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand and many other university partners. In 2014, KMUTT was awarded the Popular Vote for joining SDE in France.
Sources: www.pr.kmutt.ac.th , www.facebook.com/sde19