[**:house: Home**](https://hackmd.io/s/rkkDP_l4M) | [:boy: **About**](https://hackmd.io/s/B149Z8v7b) | [**:microscope: Researches**](https://hackmd.io/s/rJPFNKlVz) | [**:rocket: Side projects**](https://hackmd.io/s/H1aS2qe4G) | [**:airplane: Life gallery**](https://hackmd.io/s/HJN4JslNM) [Popular science](https://hackmd.io/s/H1aS2qe4G#popular-science) **>** Solar-energy car race competition --- # [Competition] Solar-energy car race *<div style="text-align: center;" markdown="1">`solar energy` `trash recycle` `child education` `science`</div>* ## Introduction Since May of 2017 to March of 2018, I was in educational military service in Taiwan, which is my duty as a man of Taiwanese. I chose to serve in a remote and resourceless elementary school in *Yilan* (宜蘭) where locates in the north-east of Taiwan island, while it is far away from my home where is in the south-west, called *Tainan* (台南). <div style="text-align: center;" markdown="1"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/FVN0FAq.png" height="300"></div> *Yilan* is the beautiful country facing the *Pacific Ocean* and surround by the amazing mountains and rice fields. Since the population is less, the most of original nature is kept well. The kids born here are familiar and growing in such lovely environment. However, the educational resource is also less than advance city, e.g. the young teachers. Thus, I took this chance to go into a village and lived with them for a year. The elementary school is called [***Ci-Sian elementary school*** **(七賢國民小學)**](https://www.facebook.com/宜蘭縣七賢國小-364562170351532/) where is nearby the *Lan-Yang River*. There are about 60 kids of 7-13 years-old distributed with the 6 grades according to their ages, 15 teachers and public stuffs, which is a small school comparing to school in city. *<div style="text-align: center;" markdown="1">*[<img src="https://i.imgur.com/O32xor6.jpg" height="300">](https://i.imgur.com/O32xor6.jpg)</div> Although it is a remote school, several great teachers contribute their specialized background referred to the life and nature around the village to provide the remarkable teaching styles. They are educated to know about the nature, language, culture and sport related to where they are living, e.g. the football is the traditional sport here, which is not popular in Taiwan. Luckily, they are open-mind and welcome me to assist them for the science program and football training. ## Competition In September of 2017, I volunteered to lead kids to join the competition of solar-energy car race. This is unforgettable chance to show the magic of science. We made the trash to be the varied autos together. They enjoyed the experiment and research during designing. I always remember the moment how surprise as they saw the wheel were spinning by solar energy. **<div style="text-align: center;" markdown="1">**[<img src="https://i.imgur.com/7JVU4K1.jpg" height="300">](https://i.imgur.com/7JVU4K1.jpg)</div> In the end, with the 2 weeks efforts, the trash-recycle solar-energy car race competition has been successfully achieved by these 9-13 years-old kids. We won [the 3rd of 20 school teams](https://i.imgur.com/lbp2XMF.jpg). It is very emotional when I saw they were solving problems without any help under limited resource. The kids were very happy and had the big joys during competition. Feel lucky to have supports of the teachers and the chance to contribute my knowledges and research spirit. Hope this unforgettable experience makes them having the confidence and no fear to play with science. **<div style="text-align: center;" markdown="1">**[<img src="https://i.imgur.com/URwf92J.jpg" height="300">](https://i.imgur.com/URwf92J.jpg)</div> ## Photo/video memories **<div style="text-align: center;" markdown="1">**[<img src="https://i.imgur.com/7JVU4K1.jpg" width="227" height="170">](https://i.imgur.com/7JVU4K1.jpg) [<img src="https://i.imgur.com/8IcBMP4.jpg" width="227" height="170">](https://i.imgur.com/8IcBMP4.jpg) [<img src="https://i.imgur.com/7Rqj8cn.jpg" width="227" height="170">](https://i.imgur.com/7Rqj8cn.jpg)[<img src="https://i.imgur.com/N9cySns.jpg" width="227" height="170">](https://i.imgur.com/N9cySns.jpg) [<img src="https://i.imgur.com/03e6xj2.jpg" width="227" height="170">](https://i.imgur.com/03e6xj2.jpg) [<img src="https://i.imgur.com/2xKrNv2.jpg" width="227" height="170">](https://i.imgur.com/2xKrNv2.jpg) </div> {%youtube _B2hxVfQ3h0 %} ## References - Competition announcement : http://www.ylsh.ilc.edu.tw/bulletin/article/14793 - http://www.ylsh.ilc.edu.tw/bulletin/upload_files/3/48/106能源科技5197_1.pdf - Picture credited to [N.F.A.P.T](http://www.pt.org.tw/english/) <br> --- [:ghost: Github](https://github.com/juifa-tsai) | [:busts_in_silhouette: Linkedin ](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jui-fa-tsai-08ba0a93)