Students in driving seat with flower power

A GROUP of students are using flower power to impress the judges in an international technology competition by driving to the contest in Paris in a car fuelled by sunflower oil.

The three students from NUI Maynooth and their college lecturer left on the ferry for England yesterday and plan to drive the rest of the way to the French capital by this evening.

Aodhán Coffey, Brian Byrne and Karl O’Dwyer, who study engineering and computer science, were winners of the Irish leg of the Microsoft Imagine Cup competition, and felt the best way to demonstrate their unique motoring fuel conversion kit to the judges at the world final in Paris was to literally drive the message home.