Arrow Ostfriesen against a pile of scrap Turbo.

16 teams, a Drive, a winner: student inventors started in Hildesheim a bold companion race, the only cordless screwdriver moved. It was great duel - here Friesen fleet with high-tech in the luggage, there is a garbage Hessen Mobil.

 

Hildesheim - Thick smoke moves through the turf, through the smoke hisses a futuristic vehicle. It has three wheels, two front and one rear, which opponents call it reverently "the spider". The fine aluminum legs stretch to over a meter just above the roadway. In the driver squats.

Threatening does the "spider" - but it runs rather leisurely. Other competitors are moving significantly Flinker.

On the drive is not, it can not lie. As of 16 student teams from all over Germany on Saturday in Hildesheim have supplied, is the most democratic piece of racing, which you can conceive. Two battery-powered electric screwdriver, of 18 volts, are the only permitted engine - imagine that absolute equality in the Formula 1: An identical machine for everyone.

Hot Renner leather and cardboard

For the sixth time, the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Hildesheim Battery Screwdrivers races - a bizarre contest in which designers and engineers to show what they can. Your mission: a racing car to build a pure drive through the commercial battery drill, which is a sponsor. And as it goes through the course, per round of 150 meters by a gym.

Photo: HAWK
Video: JKR

The drivers here are students, not Rennfahrprofis. A wooden ramp is the only starter, also is responsible for all the same. What counts is the construction. Which team will bring the battery performance on the skills tested on the racetrack, at least lose the rare air force and rolling resistance, and integrates a circuit, the accelerator and speeding possible?

Cardboard is the building material of the product design students at Thomas Ernhofer from Schwäbisch Gmünd near Stuttgart. Last night, they have their battery-powered cardboard bike again disassembled and the few metal parts and the wheels of their two-wheeler matt black. Why? "It's worth it even looks better," says Ernhofer of the College of Design and radiates.

At the bottom of the trouser Hall

Appearance is an important factor for the machines of the hobbyist. As the students from Schwäbisch Gmünd, most product designers. Win is the fastest, but the jubilation of some 1200 spectators in the arena is one of the three teams Hildesheimer clearly the sharpest devices on two or three tires. Or one.

Overall Race Inc. mention the three guys from the Kassel Art Academy, and a work of art they have made on the runway. Arne office box is in a motorcycle abgewetzten divide. "Our most expensive investment, $ 50 at eBay," says the student, shortly before his graduation stands. Where other teams and huge stands geleckte presentation areas have built up and the Hildesheimer aQrad team even several times in this race to the carpeted floor of the box sucks, there is only one in overalls clothes racks.

That rocks of the sixties-years-suit motorcycle gear such as a superhero. Between his legs dangling a wheel fixed to the trousers of the Combined connected. And the two screwdrivers left and right of the wheel are also the handlebar grips. At their ends rotating transfer rolls of Inlineskates the force directly to the Scheibenrad between Arnes legs.

Arne goes to the bottom trousers, his shoes and at the rear turn tiny roles. His overall team has only the unicycle in the race, and Arne rauscht on the bottom pant through the hall - the audience ecstatic.