Bonding of an aluminum part for a drive shaft with Loctite 648.
Winners of the special award for the best use of adhesive: the Bayreuth University team pose at the Henkel stand.
The design competition attracts a great deal of interest internationally, with teams from colleges and universities from all over the world taking part. It ranks as a sort of unofficial Olympics for engineering students. Competing against all other entrants, the teams have to design and build the prototype of a new racing car from scratch, present it as a business case, and test its performance in various trials and a final race. The final round included 78 teams in the Combustion category and 31 in the Electric category.
The five-day event is one of the highlights every year for the General Industry business of Henkel, which serves as one of the main sponsors. Up to eight Henkel adhesives experts were available at any time to give the contestants advice or lend a helping hand-in the pits, working on the cars themselves, or at the Henkel stand. The latter was not only stocked with high-performance repair and maintenance products from Henkel’s Loctite® and Teroson® brands, but also featured workbenches and even a heating cabinet to accelerate the curing of different adhesives.
Award for Best Use of Adhesive
In order to inspire students to become even more creative, Henkel established a special award for the best use of adhesive throughout the entire contest. Submissions are judged on the attractiveness and creativity of the bonding application, the way the adhesive was selected and verified, the presentation made to the jury, and the students’ knowledge about bonding technologies.Seven teams made it through to the final round, and the award was given to Bayreuth University. The previous year’s winner, Zwickau University, received second place, and Coburg University came in third.
“Last year, the entries were already of a very high standard,” says Rudolf Neumayer, Head of Application Technology, Industrial Adhesives, Europe. “But this year, they raised the bar several notches further. This trend shows that we are definitely moving in the right direction with our educational approach.”
Henkel’s level of engagement in the entire contest earned high praise, not only from the contestants themselves but also from the organizer. “Henkel was present with a large team and often performed last-minute rescue jobs,” said Ludwig Vollrath of VDI (the Association of German Engineers), who is in charge of the event. “People were highly impressed by that.”
Multiplier Effect and Greater Brands Awareness
Henkel acknowledges that the company and industry profit from the event as well. “The five-day finale of the contest was itself attended by around 2,500 students, professors and design specialists,” says Patricia Silva, Marketing manager, General Industry. “No other event throughout the year draws so many highly interested people with a will to experiment. Having such a representative target group all in one place means that we can achieve important multiplier effects and heightened awareness of our brands.”“Bonding is simply the most dependable solution,” said Moritz Berard, a 23-year-old student from Karlsruhe University who participated in the contest. “For me, bonding is one of the best solutions there is, and easily the simplest and most dependable one. It opens up whole new worlds and gives an immense amount of design freedom.”
Henkel says its engagement is actually a medium- to long-term investment that not many companies take the trouble to make. But the benefits can already be estimated, thinks Alfred Kaltenbach, Area Sales manager for Baden-Württemberg of Henkel’s General Industry business.
“In Germany alone, about 2,200 young engineering graduates start their careers by going straight from university into private enterprise, where sooner or later they will occupy key positions,” he explains. “When engineers who have previously learned about our adhesives and sealants then design new components, they will already be familiar with all the advantages of adhesive bonding technologies and will include this joining technique in their design considerations right from the beginning. This way, adhesive bonding, which was unfortunately often regarded as a last resort in the past, will gain the status it deserves. And we intend to make sure that the young engineers’ experiences with Henkel have been entirely positive.”
About Henkel
Henkel operates worldwide with leading brands and technologies in three business areas: Laundry & Home Care, Cosmetics/Toiletries and Adhesive Technologies. Founded in 1876, Henkel holds globally leading market positions both in the consumer and industrial businesses with well-known brands such as Persil, Schwarzkopf and Loctite. Henkel’s preferred shares are listed in the German stock index DAX, and the company ranks among the Fortune Global 500.For more information, visit www.henkel.com.
