Taiwan’s representative team has claimed the second place at the ninth International Salon of Inventions and New Technologies, the Chinese Innovation and Invention Society said yesterday.
The event was held in Sevastol, Ukraine, this year, with 69 gold medals, 52 silvers, 20 bronze medals and 3 special prizes awarded to teams from a total of 37 countries.
Taiwan’s team submitted 172 inventions, competing against a total of 580 submissions.
The society said that the total number of medals the team won put it in second place behind Ukraine.
The inventions submitted by Tajen University, National Tsing Hua University and Nanowin Technology received special prizes, the society said, adding that the National Yunlin University of Science and Technology had received five gold and five silver medals at the Salon.
The team from Tajen University received a special award for their environmentally friendly lunchbox containers.
The containers are made from polyactic acid, making them lighter than other lunchboxes, and include a fork, a spoon, a pair of chopsticks and a removable bowl, the head of the university’s Applicable Fashion and Beauty Department Liao Yu-wen (廖郁雯) said.
Liao added that the utensils were biodegradable and would not cause any environmental damage.
Meanwhile, National Yunlin University of Technology and Science said that its team, led by university instructor Wan Teng-chou (萬藤州), had garnered five gold and five silver medals, adding that the team’s environmentally friendly shoes had won a gold medal.
The invention was aimed at people with peripheral vascular circulation problems, the university said, adding that the shoes turned kinetic energy generated by movement into enough electricity to power warming pads around the wearer’s ankle.
The university also said that the power generated by wearing the shoes could be used for other purposes, but added that it was only just enough to make an emergency call on a mobile phone or to power an LED screen.
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