Munich.

Seven days before the final.

The kick-off meeting of the Marine Decontamination Equipment Design Competition, which was invited by XPRIZE, the world's first science and technology public welfare fund, to university organizations from all over the world, was held in the exhibition hall on the second floor of the BMW Museum in Munich.

The BMW Museum is located at the BMW Brand Experience Center in Munich, BMW's global headquarters, and is the core component of the BMW Brand Experience Center. With a total area of 5,000 square meters, the museum is designed in the shape of a "bowl", and next to it is the headquarters of BMW's "four-cylinder building". The exhibition hall of the BMW Museum is designed as a wrap-around space, displaying all kinds of BMW cars, BMW motorcycles, light bikes and some special-purpose vehicle samples produced over the years according to different eras and periods, and using modern high-tech means such as sound, light, electricity, multimedia and other high-tech means and pictures and audio-visual materials to enhance the artistic space for product display, and comprehensively interpret the growth and development history of BMW AG.

The energy of the entire museum is supplied by solar power generation equipment arranged on the roof of the venue, along the conveyor belt from the first floor to the second floor, looking upward, even some of the equipment between the first floor and the second floor are powered by new energy, which highlights the concept of technology to change life design.

In the exhibition hall on the second floor, there are about 60 people and a total of 12 teams, who are carefully watching the promotional video of the competition requirements and background introduction played on the big screen in the center.

The film lists several typical global marine pollution incidents, which are slow and expensive according to traditional decontamination methods, which gradually expands the sea pollution and triggers more cascading natural disasters.

Current Situation of Marine Oil PollutionMarine oil pollution not only affects the growth of marine organisms, reduces the use value of the coastal environment, and destroys coastal facilities, but also may affect the hydrometeorological conditions in local areas and reduce the self-purification capacity of the ocean. According to measurements, each drop of oil can form an oil film of 0.25 square meters on the water surface, and each ton of oil may cover 5×106 square meters of water surface. The oil film isolates the atmosphere from the surface of the water, reducing the amount of oxygen entering the seawater, thereby reducing the ocean's ability to purify itself. The oil film covering the sea surface will also hinder the evaporation of seawater, affect the heat exchange between the atmosphere and the ocean, change the reflectivity of the sea surface, reduce the solar radiation entering the surface of the ocean, and may have a certain impact on the hydrometeorological conditions in local areas. The biggest hazard of marine oil pollution is the impact on marine life, oil film and oil lumps can stick to a large number of fish eggs and juveniles, make fish eggs die, juveniles deform, and also make fish and shrimp produce oil odor.

From a practical point of view, it is not very important to consider how to put equipment and scope in the ocean, but the means of decontamination need to be considered first.

Although this is the first semi-public invitation competition organized by the XPRIZE Foundation, many universities do not know the strength of this foundation, so there is no force in terms of the number of participating teams, but I still hope to be able to make a voice in the world, that is, in this world, there is still a group of people who are willing to make some due contributions to human beings and nature.

Riva and Sally are Gao Zhao Yili's two senior brothers and sisters, and have participated in two similar competitions, so they taught him many skills and coping methods in this competition system while preparing, the first thing to determine is the core content of decontamination, that is, what kind of method to use to deal with petroleum pollution sources, solve this, how to manufacture equipment, so that the treated equipment how to recycle is much simpler.

While the three of them were brainstorming and researching this solution, almost half of the other 11 teams had already begun to make sketches of the equipment, and the remaining half were similar to the three-person team on Zhao Yili's side.

In this format, there is no such thing as qualifiers, group stages, and qualifiers, but directly conducts the primary selection and then enters the finals.

The primary selection mainly tests how the participating teams deal with the pollutants, but the results of this stage of the selection are not public, the primary selection takes only one day, and when it comes to the finals five days later, it will be necessary to test the equipment of the participating teams from design to reality in real scenarios.

Time passed bit by bit, and when the scheduled time was over, all 12 teams on site signaled that the preliminary design had been completed.

However, when the experts invited by the organizing committee reviewed the design proposals submitted by the participating teams, they cleanly and directly excluded the qualifications of the 6 teams to continue the competition, because:

Because the first and second generation of chemical degreasers born in the sixties of the twentieth century have a huge advantage in manufacturing costs over time, this method also looks quite attractive, but experts have always believed that the secondary pollution caused by the composition of the current degreaser is tantamount to another disaster for marine life, so after discussionWithout hesitation, half of the participating teams were disqualified, but this decision was made out of a rigorous attitude towards technology and people's livelihood, rather than a criticism of the participating teams themselves, so they were invited to come to watch the finals on the day of the finals six days later, and the unsuccessful contestants readily agreed.

At this time, the host, a middle-aged lady dressed in a business dress, informed the remaining six teams with a full enthusiasm and standard business language, hoping that each team would further improve the selected plan in the next six days, and at the same time design and manufacture the actual equipment with the support of the logistics team.

Finals Day.

In front of the BMW Museum, crowded with people, famous cars gathered, on the high platform built early outside, in front of each of the six participating teams, a huge water tank was placed, and the water tank contained 100 liters of seawater transported by air, but in order to truly reflect the actual decontamination effect of the entries, in the water tank, the surface of the seawater was divided into two layers, the first layer simulated the relatively shallow seabed, arranged some rice grass and mangroves, and placed some shellfish under the mangroves. At a deeper level, there are deep-sea fish and other creatures.

Zhao Yili has a strong confidence in himself, but the world is so big and there are many geniuses, it is impossible to let the benefits of the world be exclusive to a few people, so he also participates in the competition with a learning attitude, just to improve his understanding and creative ability by participating in this level of academic exchanges.

I want to create my own science and technology empire, this goal is too ambitious, just by virtue of a certain book in my own brain "The Origin of Creation" is a drop in the bucket, if you want to design and manufacture those cross-era fierce materials inside, without a step-by-step, solid foundation of science and engineering is simply not possible, in order to achieve this goal, in addition to the accumulation of foundation, creative thinking needs a lot of practice and communication to progress.

Therefore, Zhao Yili came.