Samsung contest seeks solutions for tomorrow's tech

Yang Weixin, a first-year student at Ludong University in Yantai, Shandong province, said he and his teammates worked feverishly to mend their wind-energy device, in the hours running up to the finals of a national science innovation contest last month.

The criteria for the contest were clear: Design a wind-powered device that can carry the heaviest load, the fastest, in adverse conditions.

"Our device could carry 150 kilograms, and we had spent three months perfecting the design. But late the night before the content, it just wouldn't move," Yang said.