More than 30,000 people turned out to a special event on the future of energy.
Shell’s Make the Future Live took place at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, London from Thursday to Sunday.
The four-day extravaganza featured a number of inspiring and thoughtprovoking exhibits on the future of energy and how the world will have to move away from fossil fuels for energy in the future.
Some famous faces were also in attendance. Jason Bradbury from the Gadget Show and comedian Richard Ayoade hosted a podcast asking if London can become the world’s first carbon neutral city by 2050.
Countdown’s Rachel Riley also spent a day at the event.
One of the highlights of the programme was the Shell Eco Marathon. This challenges teams of students to build a car that can be as efficient as possible on one litre of fuel, or the battery equivalent. The current Eco Marathon record stands at 3771KM from one litre – the same as travelling from London to Helsinki and back on a litre of fuel.
More than 4000 students from 170 teams and over 25 countries, ranging from Belgium and Bulgaria to Turkey and Tunisia took part.
Every car drove round the specially designed track at a set speed for a precise time before experts calculated their efficiency.
The winners were French team Microjoule-La Joliverie from the La Joliverie University in Nantes, whose vehicle’s efficiency was 2504KM from a litre of fuel.
Scotland boasted two representatives: Strathclyde University and the University of the West of Scotland (UWS).
Both teams were making their debuts in the competition and both thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
Sophie Bunton, Strathclyde’s team captain and a fourth-year aeromechanical engineering student, said: “It was a really good event, a lot of the more experienced teams are willing to help you, we could go over and ask how they created their vehicle because we liked it and they would be willing to help you and give information.
“With this being our first year in the event, we had to come up with a brand new design and we spent nine months working on the vehicle.
“So we were just hoping to get some experience of the competition and this has let us find out what we need to do for next year.”