The Maritime Research Institute Netherlands (MARIN) challenged Dutch school children to design the ship of the future. The result: a container ship in the form of a sailfish with a retractable sail, a frictionless shark skin and a flexible moving tail.
The idea for this competition arose when MARIN was the first research institute in the world to test its 10,000th ship model in November last year (the model of the Den Helder, the newest ship for the Royal Netherlands Navy). Director Bas Buchner: 'We didn't want to look backwards after 10,000 models, but forwards. That is why we asked the children of the Netherlands to think about the clean, smart and safe ships of the future. And with great results: a container ship in the shape of a sailfish, with nets to catch containers that threaten to be thrown overboard. For such a good idea, you really need children!'
Lots of Different Designs
Almost a hundred classes and children took part in the competition. Sometimes a class worked together on one design, sometimes everyone in the class made his or her own design. The results were ships with solar panels, sails, windmills and hydrogen engines for clean propulsion, floating hospitals for marine animals, cruise ships with amusement parks, chill rooms and escape rooms and smart self-propelled ships with cameras and radars.
Scale Model Tests
In the end, MARIN did not choose a single winner, but combined the best ideas from four different classes into the design of the "ship of the future". The winning classes were the fifth and sixth grade of elementary school the Triangel in Ede, the sixth grade of the Mariënborn in Oosterbeek and the third grade of De Spiegel in The Hague. These classes were present at the award ceremony of the competition on Friday 28 June where a real scale model of the winning ship was tested in one of the test facilities at MARIN in Wageningen, the Netherlands.
Inspiration from Nature
Buchner: 'The beauty is that the children have looked to nature for inspiration: a streamlined fish shape, the retractable sail of the sailfish, a frictionless shark skin and a flexible moving tail. The sail also consists of solar panels, so it has a double effect. And what a good idea to make nets on the ship to prevent containers from ending up in the sea. That idea came in after a container ship lost more than 300 containers over the Dutch Wadden Islands on 2 January this year. Really a solution to think about. And the whole thing looks incredibly cool too!'
All classes get a model of the ship of the future for the classroom. The ship of the future will also be exhibited at the Dutch Maritime Museum in Rotterdam.
Picture: The model of the sailfish container ship designed by school children.
