A near miss is as good as a win

Schiltach, July 2010. A fairytale performance, even if victory was just out of reach. What sounds like a description of the German national team in South Africa actually describes the performance of the “ikaROS Bavaria” team at the first European Solar Decathlon in Madrid. At the end of the competition, the student group from Rosenheim University of Applied Sciences, supported by bathroom and sanitation specialist Hansgrohe AG, came overall second out of 20 university teams. Just 0.9 points separated them from the Virginia Tech team from the USA, which used its entry from the American Solar Decathlon to represent it in the competition’s European counterpart. The Bavarian team topped the rankings in the assessment criteria “energy balance” and “appliances and functioning”. Axor, the designer brand from Hansgrohe AG, also contributed to this success; the Axor Starck shower column was used in the bathroom of the “ikaROS Bavaria” project.