GAINESVILLE, Ga. – Some budding engineers from the University of Maine have, in a way, figured out how to turn a pile of wood chips into $10,000.

The 17-member team, competing Saturday in the Energy Challenge 2001 competition, constructed a 79-square-foot sail for a boat race on Lake Lanier in Gainesville, Ga. The sail, fashioned over the course of the past eight months, was constructed from a 1,000-pound pile of pine wood chips.

The Energy Challenge is an annual event co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and several private and nonprofit organizations. It is designed to present college engineering students with challenges that will help develop energy efficiency and waste minimization in the pulp and paper industry.

Schools competing in the event were asked to construct a sail, made from pine wood chips, which would be used in a race of Olympics-class sailboats. Each school’s team had to design the sail on its own and determine the best size-to-weight ratio, composition and strength.

Teams are evaluated on the sail’s performance during a race, its weight, tear and tensile strength, and the novelty of its design.

The University of Maine team finished second among the five competing schools and won $10,000 in prize money to be used to enhance the chemical engineering equipment at UMaine. A team from the College of Environmental Science and Forestry at the State University of New York at Syracuse took first place.

Monique Cote, a senior at the UMaine and a chemical engineering major, said Saturday that the event was a particularly challenging one because the students were asked to create a finely tuned product from the most basic of materials.

“It was different than the other energy challenges,” Cote said.

“This one was unusually unique because we actually started with the wood chips. This was really an excellent opportunity to go over the entire process.”

John Hwaleck, a chemical engineering professor, advised the team of 15 chemical engineering and two mechanical engineering technician students.

Saturday’s second-place finish marks continued strong showings at the event for UM. In 2000, it took first prize, and it finished second in 1999.