Five inspiring and novel new products to enhance health and wellbeing have been selected by the judging panel to contest the final of the Design Innovation in Plastics competition, 2019.
Headline sponsored by Covestro, and the longest running student plastics design competition of its type, it is held every year to encourage university students to come up with brand new products made primarily of plastic.
The brief set this year by organisers, the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining and the Worshipful Company of Horners, was to improve health, wellbeing or encouraging exercise, with a product which has the qualities of longevity and sustainability.
Judges carefully examined 149 entries at the preliminary judging stage before selecting five finalists, whose entries most closely matched the brief and satisfied the competition criteria.
Covestro
The finalists go through to a final judging round on May 24, and the overall results will be announced at a ceremony in London on July 5.
The winner will receive a trip to Germany to visit Covestro, along with a cash prize. A key feature of the competition is that every finalist also receives short industry placement with one of the competition sponsors: Brightworks, HellermannTyton, Innovate Product Design, PDD and RJG Technologies.
The five finalists are:
Louis Farnsworth - 3rd year product design student, De Montfort University
Product Name: Air - A smart breathing aide for asthmatics to reduce asthma flare up and irritation to the lungs and airway when exercising.
Daniella Kalligorsky – 3rd year product design student, Technological University Dublin. Product name: Checkkit - A new way to raise breast cancer awareness by promoting self-examination.
Christopher Kay – 4th year product design student, De Montfort University.
Product name: EnviroJect – a re-usable syringe system, providing a 97.8 per cent reduction in plastic syringe wastage per year within the NHS.
Namgyun Ryu – 1st year MSc Integrated Product Design student, Brunel University.
Product name: Tri Walker – A walking assistant product for enhanced mobility and health for the elderly, adding improved functionality to conventional walking aids.
Kai Wang – 4th year integrated product design student, Brunel University.
Product: Pot luck - A combined cooking and storage device that encourages and simplifies the production of stock cubes using avoidable food waste.
Chairman of judges, Richard Brown (RJG Technologies), said: “The brief this year was quite wide-ranging and was clearly open to different interpretations – but also provided the opportunity for more original thought.”
“Whilst many fell short, due to insufficient investigation into intellectual property, materials and manufacturability of the product ideas, a hard core of students came up with some interesting product ideas.”
Technical service engineer, Mike Stuart (formerly Covestro) added: “Some have come up with very interesting new concepts, which could have tangible value in real world situations, depending on whether they can be further refined. We will look forward to seeing how the products have progressed when the finalists present them in person in a few weeks’ time.”