CLAAS Foundation awarded scholarships and further prices

Frieda Bautz (Bautz Landmaschinenfabrik, today CLAAS Saulgau) considered the CLAAS Foundation in her last will.

Most important item of the programme and eagerly awaited by the guests was the presentation by the students and the award ceremony itself. The students knew that they had been nominated for one of the scholarships, but they did not know which place exactly they made. The secret was disclosed by Helmut Claas, chairman of the Board of Trustees, who handed over the prestigious awards.

The “Helmut CLAAS- scholarship” is addressed to students of general engineering as well as economics. This year gifted students from Germany, Great Britain and Sweden were awarded. Further bonus prices and international student prices were awarded to students from Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and the Netherlands.

Scholarships:

1. Price: The first price, a scholarship amounting to 7,200 € was awarded to Benjamin Heiler from the University of Hohenheim. In his bachelor thesis the 28year old student has compared the driving characteristics of a spiked roller with an AS tyre for single axle tractors. Those hand-operated machines are commonly used in mountainous regions due to their small weight. Equipped with a spike roll they can be used to cultivate impassable steep slopes in a mechanized manner.
2. Price: Hedlin Simon Larsson (24 years) born in Taiwan und meanwhile Swedish citizen with a bachelor degree from the University of Birmingham gave his speech via a video message from the USA. In line with his own global background, also his  topic was global: He analysed the meaning of agricultural productivity as a measure for economical development in different countries. According to Larsson the development of agriculture has a bigger impact on the political development of a society than the gross domestic product. With his work he won the second prize worth 6,000 €.
3. Price: Third price amounting to 4,800 € went to Bernd Lummer (26 years) from the University of Hohenheim. He analyzed the still quite young technique of strip-till tillage invented in the USA, which can avoid erosion and compaction. Bernd Lummer shows that the strip-till tillage in the corn seed is a good alternative to the conventional tillage after the following ryegrass.
4. Price: The forth price worth 3,600 € was awarded to Anna Lisa Junge (24 years). Her bachelor thesis at the Technical University deals with the usage of electric motors to drive agricultural attachments. The work delivers a selection strategy to decide whether a conventional or an electrical drive is more reasonable depending on the case of usage. The example of a fertiliser spreader shows a definite result in favour of the electric drive.

Bonus prizes:

Beyond the scholarships four bonus prizes worth 1,500 € each were awarded. The price in the category “Internationality” went to Bettina Armgart from the University of Osnabrück. In the category “Technical innovation” Daniel Campling was awarded. He is a student of the Harper Adams University College and is on a world trip at the moment. Julian Haselmaier from the University of Stuttgart received a bonus prize in the category “Technology”. A further bonus prize in this category was awarded to Vami Soma from the Technical University of Budapest.

International Student awards:

For the first time four international student awards were presented: Paul Veghes (Banat University Timisoara / Romania), Gábor Dull (Budapest University for Technology and Economics / Hungary) , Peter Skalský (Slovakian Agriculture University Nitra) and Henja Besuijen (Wageningen University / Netherlands).

Two guest lectures completed the CLAAS Foundation award ceremony. The future-orientated topic of usage of biomass was tackled by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Frank Beneke of the University of Applied Sciences in Schmalkalden. He presented his latest research on new machines for the usage of biomass. Dr. David Clare from the Harper Adams University College (Great Britain) reported about the new training facilities for mechatronics students.