Participants fix a low-carbon school gate model during a creative competition in Taizhou, east China's Jiangsu Province, on Wednesday. [China Daily]

More than 3,000 teenagers gathered in Taizhou, Jiangsu Province, to showcase their ingenuity in the weeklong national final of a creative competition that features low-carbon technologies.

The competition, co-founded by the Chinese Society of Education and Copyright Society of China, requires competitors to make eco-friendly gadgets out of parts provided to them.

The groups that make the most efficient and ingenious of gadgets win the contest.

The event, which concludes on Saturday, is being held in the Taizhou Middle School, alma mater of President Hu Jintao.

The contestants in the final stage of the competition were sifted from 1.5 million candidates across the country's 24 provinces and regions.

Between March and June this year, 37 qualifying trials were held nationwide.

"The ability of innovation is in the core of all the abilities of a student," said Luo Fanhua, head of the competition's organizing committee.

"The aim of the contest is to encourage students to think creatively, to break the sense of mystery and to learn how to innovate."

Liang Jiahui, a high school student from Hong Kong, said she is "exhilarated" to have made it to the final stage of the competition.

"In the final round, our group plans to make a solar bell that works without any batteries," she said.

Another group of students from Karamay in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has a more ambitious plan.

"We will make a mini campus whose electricity is provided by solar panels, in line with the popular low-carbon concept," said Ablimit, the group's instructor.

The eight-member group made various kinds of electricity generators on their way to the final, including windmills and a water generator.

This is the fourth time that the Taizhou Middle School is holding the competition, which is sponsored by solar panels maker Suntech Power.

The school is among the country's forerunners in cultivating students' creativity.

Nearly 30 students of the school have been awarded in various innovation competitions in the last two years.

Earlier this year, a student of the school got a national patent for building a quakeproof house using self-created "quakeproof bricks".

(China Daily July 31, 2010)