Science contest winners send SOS

TWO Nyatsime College pupils who won the top prize during the Africa Science Buskers competition in Zambia last week have been invited to make their energy project presentation in Turkey in June.

Nigel Zinyama and Brendon Mrehwa’s project titled “Energy and Power Croner Brendon Energy Management System” won the first prize in Africa.

The duo is seeking financial assistance to travel to Turkey to make presentations on their energy-saving system.

In an interview, the teenagers said they needed assistance to cover a quarter of their expenses as the other three-quarters had already been covered by their sponsors.

“After winning a grand prize in Zambia, we were told that we were going to represent Africa in Turkey this year in June, in which the sponsors are covering three-quarters of the expenses,” said Mrehwa.

“Therefore, we need assistance to cover the remainder.”

Mrehwa said their energy-saving project was motivated by the need to complement Government in ensuring the efficient use of power.

“Our project started last year when we were in Lower Six after we were given some topics by our head of department (Mr Choto) to go and research and come up with the possible solutions,” he said.

“I sat down with my friend and chose the energy and power topic because we discovered that Zimbabwe was not producing enough electricity from Kariba Hydro and Hwange Thermal Power Station.

“And we also discovered that we were importing 300 megawatts (MW) of electricity from South Africa and 100MW from Zambia.

“In 2012, Government introduced the use of prepaid electricity and that system managed to save around 27,5 percent of electricity that was imported from SA and Zambia.

“So now with our project, we are complementing the efforts that were made by Government by reducing additional expenses from importing electricity.”