Education is Switzerland’s most important natural resource and the bedrock of its current and future success. In 2023, ETH Zurich students once again put their knowledge into practice by building an electric racing car that broke the previous world record for acceleration. ETH’s mythen vehicle accelerated from 0 to 100 km/h in just 0.956 seconds. Another team of students travelled more than 3,000 kilometres in their self-built solar car. The students drove for six days through the sweltering heat of the Australian outback to complete the World Solar Challenge.
But cars aren’t the only thing that ETH’s students and researchers work with: they used drones to collect traces of DNA from living organisms in the rainforest, thereby identifying numerous species of plants and animals. Their technology was impressive enough to land them in the finals of the XPRIZE Rainforest competition.
Parathlete Flurina Rigling is also aiming to take part in a prestigious competition: the 2024 Paralympics in Paris. ETH student Luca Hasler built Rigling a new custom set of bike handlebars. Rigling is expecting them to bring her enhanced safety and comfort, but above all faster times.
