Hanwha Science Challenge Successfully Concluded

*This content was translated by AI.

The finals of the 15th 'Hanwha Science Challenge 2026', hosted by Hanwha Group, were held successfully over three days from the 12th to 14 at the Hanwha Insurance Life Campus in Chungju, North Chungcheong Province.

The Hanwha Science Challenge is a high school science competition launched with Chairman Kim Seung-yeon of Hanwha Group's vision to cultivate young Korean Nobel Prize winners in science.

This year, a total of 1,088 teams from 214 schools nationwide participated, marking the largest scale in history—an increase of more than 43% compared to last year.

The Grand Prize was awarded to the Azas team (students Kim Sang-yul and Heo Jin-woo from Bucheon High School, supervised by teacher Choi Jae-won) for their research on "Turning Adversity into Advantage: A Wireless Wildfire Response and Restoration System Based on Phlox Snap Buckling." The Azas team received high praise for proposing an eco-friendly disaster prevention and restoration system that mimics the structure of phlox seeds being ejected through snap buckling, detecting wildfire heat to spray extinguishing agents and converting debris into fertilizer.

The Azas team stated, "This was a meaningful time in which we learned that research starting from a small observation of flowers bursting can become an idea that changes the world. We deeply thank Hanwha Group for providing this opportunity and Teacher Choi Jae-won for guiding us. We will donate part of the prize money and strive to grow into talents who contribute to society in the future."

A Hanwha representative, speaking via telephone with our newspaper, said, "We hope that spending time together with the Hanwha Science Challenge has broadened students' horizons of knowledge and helped them establish a perspective on viewing the world."

Meanwhile, over the past 15 years, more than 9,300 teams and approximately 18,000 high school students have participated in the Hanwha Science Challenge. Most of the past winners have enrolled in domestic and foreign universities and are continuing their research activities as future scientists. The total prize money for this year's competition is 200 million won, which is at the highest level in Korea.

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*This content was translated by AI.