The idea of the Riga Technical University (RTU) student team «Starfish» to create a new raw material from «ghost nets» that would be suitable for the production of plastic products has been recognised as the most innovative solution in the month-long hackathon «Neste Coopetition». Five interdisciplinary teams developed effective solutions for recycling nets or water robotics in their search for ways to alleviate «ghost net» problems.
The «Most Growth Potential» award went to the RTU School of Engineering student team «KiNETics» for their prototype drone that finds «ghost nets» by using a computer vision to catch them and pull them out of the water by a tether.
Other teams also came up with great solutions: the «Enthusiastic Fishing Society» suggested recycling «ghost nets» for cement and plaster production, the «Edamarine» team presented a prototype underwater acoustic sensor to locate such nets, and the «iRAFT*SUBmerge» team presented an underwater drone with a mechanised, floating platform that would provide incomparably long underwater operation, remote control and reduced CO2 emissions. This equipment could be used to explore networks, potentially also to separate them from other objects and even to attach balloons for retrieval.
The hackathon was organised by «Neste Latvija» in cooperation with the RTU Science and Innovation Centre. It was the first coopetition or a new type of hackathon in Latvia, where teams of participants were invited to cooperate with each other instead of competing. This way, the skills of future innovators were trained to cooperate with each other, competitors, industry and experts, to validate and validate ideas, prototypes and transfer knowledge.
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