While red dominated the Green Team’s cars and offices until now, their new official color is – you guessed it - green. However, the new team plans to change a lot more. ‘We are transitioning now, but we’d like to rebrand and change our image. Besides the color change, we are also looking into changing our logo,’ says Gerben Bieleman from the Green Team Twente.
Need for speed
‘We definitely want to put our own spin on it,’ continues Bieleman. ‘Unlike the previous teams, we’d like to focus more on participating in the Drivers’ World Championship, for which you can qualify during the Shell Eco Marathon. This means we’d like our hydrogen car to be not only efficient, but also fast.’
This is why the team decided to change the body of the car. ‘The body has been the same for several years now, but we have prepared a new aerodynamic design. We also plan to make some structural improvements,’ clarifies Bieleman, who happens to be the Chief Structural on the team.
Improving everything
There is more. ‘For the very first time, we have chemical engineers working on the hydrogen cell of the car. We believe this could result in a lot of improvement as well,’ he says. Are so many changes necessary? The Green Team Twente won the 2017 Shell Eco Marathon after all. ‘We see there is room for improvement. We will basically try to improve everything, do our own thing. You need to be ambitious to some degree, right?’ answers Bieleman.
On top of these changes related to the hydrogen vehicle, the Green Team Twente has a new working space in the Kennispark near the UT campus, which they share with the Electric Superbike Twente team. ‘This location is much better for us, because it allows us to have our workshop and offices at the same place,’ thinks Bieleman. Getting all team members together in one workplace also fulfils one of the goals of the Green Team’s ‘Vision H2022 Multi-Annual plan’, which they recently prepared.
‘The team is complete’
Yesterday’s Kick-off event served as a send-off for the old team members and an official welcome for the new ones. So how is the new team getting along? ‘We have been working together only since the start of this academic year, but I think we have a lot to look forward to,’ says Bieleman. ‘Our team is complete – we have 23 people in total, many of which are international. We have members from Greece or China, for example. There is also a good mix of guys and girls, which is great because this way we truly represent people at the University of Twente and Saxion.’
