果冻影院

In June 2014, we unearthed our wellies, dug out our tentpoles and, clutching our miniature fuel cell demo kit in one hand and "shewees" in the other (just me then), UCell made their debut at the infamous Glastonbury Festival. UCell entered into the collaborative project with festival veteran Mark Groves following a conversation at Green Man festival in August 2013. The Clean Green Charging Machine did what it said on the tin 鈥� house a free mobile phone charging point powered entirely by renewable energy. Our own aims for the project were to supply the system with hydrogen energy and to demonstrate to the muddy, tipsy, free-spirited public that hydrogen fuel cells really are a working technology of today.
All five of the team were new to Glastonbury, and we felt humbled to be there, yet simultaneously like it was the festival where UCell had always belonged. A homecoming if you will. Peering out of the doors of the Clean Green Charging Machine each day to see the long line of curious faces extending towards the thunderous be-buntinged horizon, we knew we were in our element. Apart from our hydrogen-powered refrigerated ciders, the most enjoyable part of the experience was our parleys with the public. Experts and laypersons alike, the punters kept us on our toes all day with questions from fuel cell science to the wider picture of hydrogen鈥檚 place in a green economy. For the more nonchalant amongst the clientele, having to wait three days before posting their Ed Sheeran selfie online was the lesser of two evils compared to hearing James talk about his research for 20 minutes. Or maybe it was just the accent.

Either way it was always a real buzz when someone鈥檚 eyes lit up when we told them about our miracle in a can and said 鈥渙h my god that鈥檚 actually like so totally awesome鈥�. It wasn鈥檛 all plain sailing, but our training in the engineering sciences prepared us well for the challenges we encountered. For example, the control system for the cooling fan stopped working, so we had to instal a manual switch to ensure that nothing apart from Rhod overheated. Nine days, forty cereal bars, hundreds of conversations, thousands of full phone batteries and not nearly enough sleep later, we put the lid on our trusty fuel cell for another festival. Exhaustedly we gathered our belongings and reminisced about our uniquely crazy Glastonbury adventure by the campfire. One thing鈥檚 for sure- we wouldn鈥檛 get experiences like this with a 9 to 5. Tell 鈥榚m, Dolly.

By聽Anna Ploszajski