Six finalists have been announced from over 140 submissions for this year’s Design Innovation in Plastics competition.
Students from UK and Ireland universities have created innovative new products to make gardening easier, as they contest in the 2018 Design Innovation in Plastics (DIP) competition.
Established in 1985, the Design Innovation in Plastics Award is the longest running student plastics design competition in Europe.
Organised by the Institute of Materials Minerals and Mining and the Worshipful Company of Horner’s, and headline sponsored by Covestro, this year’s competition brief, ‘Branching Out – Design for Garden Innovation’, challenged students to design an innovative product, primarily from plastics, that will better connect people with nature.
Over two days, the judges whittled the entries down to the final six.
Finalists include Syeda Fatima Abedi Manji, from De Montfort University, who has designed Gingko, a planter for urban spaces designed specifically with children in mind to help their development and promote the joy of gardening.
Another finalist is Olivia Alexander, also from De Montfort University, for ‘Buzz’, a bee friendly planter that administers an anti-mite chemical directly to the bees.
Lewis Brown, from Teeside University, focuses on mobility in the garden with his product, Dynamic Grip, an ergonomic multi-tool targeting gardeners with arthritis.
Brunel University has a strong showing in the 2018 competition, with three students making the finals. Firstly, Zeina Mofti has landed a place in the last six with G Cycle, a product which combines modern indoor gardening with home aquariums to enhance wellbeing, by providing a calm and relaxing environment. Fellow student, William Oughton, is competing with Bulb Garden Furniture, a set of garden accessories designed to enhance and add function to unattractive fencing.
Finally, Alex Roquero has produced Hook, a portable balcony shelf which hooks to any kind of railing, thereby optimising space in reduced areas.
The students have now been asked to refine their entries, presenting their products for final judging on 25th May before the overall winner is announced at a ceremony in London on 6th July.
“The way the students interpreted the subject varied tremendously and it challenged the judges to compare some very diverse solutions, ranging from nature to leisure,” said Richard Brown, Chairman of the judges and Managing Director of RJG Technologies.
“Many entries let themselves down by not adhering to the brief, which asked them to provide a product while having due regard to intellectual property and prior art, manufacturability and materials. However, there were some ingenious proposals and it’s clear the design talent from our universities is strong and far reaching.”
Mike Stuart, Design Engineer, formerly of Covestro, added: “Our six finalists have products which have been well thought out. They will need further development and refinement, particularly regarding manufacturing and costings, and one or two clearly have potential for adding extra features to widen their appeal.
“We are very excited about the potential of some of these products and are looking forward to the final judging, when we will see how their prototypes work.”