A success story of four TAM students! Edoardo Avidano, Lorenzo Gardini, Gabriele Nicola and Lorenzo Ranotto ranked first in the European Best Product Competition, outclassing dozens of students from all EU countries with their project.
Guided by Alessia Patrucco, professor of natural and chemical fibers, these four students created the 100% EU Wool innovative car mats project which consisted in developing car floor mats produced entirely with European waste wool; the upper layer is made of wool felt and the lower layer of partially hydrolyzed wool to form a compact material that completely replaces the rubber layer of conventional mats.
The final result is car floor mats made from 100% waste wool, added with silica from rice husk, produced without the use of synthetic fibers and polymers or dyes, and therefore biodegradable!
Lorenzo Ranotto
Gabriele Nicola
Lorenzo Gardini
Edoardo Avidano
The victory in the European Competition
The Best Product Competition is organized by the European Commission, with the support of EASME (European Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) and DG GROW (Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs). The competition is aimed at students and young people from EU countries between 19 and 29 years of age, who wish to develop their knowledge in the TCLF sectors (textile, clothing, leather and footwear).
Participants were asked to propose an innovative idea for the textile sector, developing a project in the English language to be presented to the judging committee.
For this project, our four students formed a working group called The TAM Green Mat, providing a very detailed presentation and competing with other students from Romania, Portugal, Spain, Germany, Poland, Belgium, Greece, France and Bulgaria.
“I am very proud of the work of the students – comments the teacher Alessia Patrucco – they have achieved excellent academic results and put great seriousness and enthusiasm in this project. The victory was the result of great team work on the skills necessary to develop a such a complex and articulated project”.
The Award Ceremony
As winners of the competition, our students would have flown to Brussels to attend the awarding ceremony and visit the European Commission headquarters, but unfortunately due to the COVID 19 restrictions, the ceremony was conducted online where the students were officially rewarded.
An inevitable change of program, but it absolutely did not reduce in any way the great personal satisfaction of the four students for winning an international competition. For TAM, the award represents and confirms the high level of preparation that all students achieve with our programs!
This is exactly what the Regional Councillor for Education and Work, Elena Chiorino, and our school President, Pier Francesco Corcione, emphasized during their speech at the small awarding ceremony organized right here at TAM.
