The James Dyson Award 2011 was held internationally by James Dyson for students around the world (18 countries to be exact) where the most innovative design student or team wins £10,000 (plus another £10,000 for the winner’s university department). The runners up will receive £2,000 (the winner + the department), which is still a hefty sum. Last year (2010), the winner goes to Samuel Adeloju from Sydney for Longreach – a man portable system/ bazooka that shoots an emergency water activated buoyancy aid 500 feet out to sea to save people from drowning.
This year, the winner goes to Edward Linacre from Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne for its “Airdrop” design. Another Aussie wins!
Airdrop is a low cost, self powered, and easy to install solution to the problems of growing crops in arid regions, to overcome drought (which happens most of the time for Melbourne – maybe on every Summer where we have water restrictions in place every now and then due to the lack of rain). He studied the Namib beetle which can survive by consuming the dew it collects on the skin of its back every early mornings.
Edward designed Airdrop, borrowing this concept:
..that even the driest air contains water molecules which can be extracted by lowering the air’s temperature to the point of condensation. It pumps air through a network of underground pipes, to cool it to the point at which the water condenses. Delivering water directly to the roots of plants.
As such, Edward’s research points that 11.5 mm of water can be harvested from every cubic meter of air, even in the desserts.
James Dyson was amazed by his design and picked him as the winner. Hopefully, Edward picks this up to develop and make Airdrop into reality!
Here are the other runners up, taken from Dyson’s official press release:
Kwick Screen (UK)
A portable, retractable room divider developed by Michael Korn, a student at the Royal College of Art in London. The KwickScreen allows healthcare professionals to make the best use of available space; giving maximum privacy, dignity and protection to patients. Michael explored the use bistable materials such as slap on bracelets and tape measures, and like Edward drew inspiration from concepts found in nature, including the Venus fly trap and a
frog’s tongue.
Blindspot (Singapore)
An aide for the visually handicapped, helping them travel around unfamiliar surroundings, developed by Se Lui Chew from the National University of Singapore. Blindspot informs the user of nearby friends using information from geographical-based social apps such as Foursquare, and communicates with them via a Bluetooth earpiece connected to the cane. The cane guides the user to their friend using a horizontally rolling ball on the cane handle
which points in the direction they should walk.
Meanwhile, I also got the latest innovative product samples from Dyson today, the Dyson DC39 and DC41. So, stay tuned for the upcoming reviews here at Craving Tech :) Both of them were made with Dyson’s new Ball technology.
Dyson DC41 commercial video:
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