Staff Blog

OilWhale completed their Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE official team testing on September 29th, just twelve short days prior to the Award Ceremony in New York.  While a dozen days may not seem like a long time to some, to others it is a slow lifetime.  Teams who have worked so diligently to create technology that can rapidly and efficiently clean up surface oil spills are anxiously awaiting the results but looking back, have already come away from the Competition with successes.

We said it before and we’ll say it again, this Competition is about more than winning $1M.  It is about the excitement of the Competition, the thrill of the testing and the ability to be a part of something never before accomplished.  For some teams, the Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE was about testing at a facility where they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to test, allowing them the opportunity to see their system in action and obtain data which can help them market their technology.  For those teams who are new

One might ask, now that the Competition has come to a close, what does a team do after the excitement passes?  Do they look back on their performance and feel accomplished?  Have they effectively achieved their individual goals?  Do they go back to the drawing board to improve upon their systems?  Are they ready for what comes next?  All fair questions and yet, the answers for some teams may be as uncertain as who will win on October 11th.