Tag Archives: James Dyson Awards 2020

This sustainable floating pod converts seawater into drinking water through a natural desalination process!

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WaterPod is a sustainable floating pod that turns seawater into drinking water through a natural desalination process.

97% of the earth’s water is found in its oceans, yet in its primary state, ocean water is unsuitable for human needs like drinking and cleaning. Since sustainable designs that rely on alternative energy production have been on the rise in response to environmental concerns, we’re closer than ever to scaling down macro desalination plants for individual use. One team of designers was recently recognized by The James Dyson Award for their desalination pod concept called WaterPod that turns seawater into drinkable water through an array of sustainable features.

WaterPod operates as a self-cleaning solar desalination system that absorbs seawater via underwater wicks, inspired by mangrove trees, which then passes through a condensation and evaporation process to remove the salt particles from the seawater. Just like mangrove trees, WaterPod’s underwater wicks fill the pod with seawater until its water levels reach the pod’s black fabric dome. Inside the dome, seawater undergoes evaporation as water vapors gradually flow from the transparent covering and collect in WaterPod’s storage compartment. Then, users can pump drinking water from the storage compartment’s recess. While the desalination process takes place, the WaterPod remains floating atop the water in a similar fashion to a conventional buoy. WaterPod’s top lid is filled with expanded polyurethane foam for thermal insulation and flotation enhancement while a cement base offers buoyancy stability.

The team of designers behind WaterPod developed the concept in response to a lack of clean, drinking water in Sandakan, Malaysia. Noticing the seafaring community’s reliance on the sea, the team of designers wanted to develop a means for individuals to have access to clean drinking water, no matter the amount of plastic pollution in the ocean. WaterPod is a modern solution that takes cues from the surrounding environment to bring drinking water to those who depend on it most.

Designers: Bennie Beh Hue May, Yap Chun Yoon, & Loo Xin Yang

This transparent display for captions designed for the DHH community makes sure facial expressions aren’t missed!

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See-Through Captions is a simple, understated solution for the DHH community that uses a transparent subtitle display screen to project conversations with ASR technology and incorporate facial expressions to bridge communication gaps between DHH and hearing individuals.

While there are some adaptive designs that aim to help those who are deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH), most of them rely too heavily on subtitles and audio, losing out on physical gestures and facial expressions. Some products are designed to convert sign language to text, some AI robots are meant to replace hearing dogs, and then there’s even a wearable device that translates sign language into speech. Awarded by James Dyson with Japan’s highest award, a team of designers from Digital Nature Group developed a new solution for bridging communication gaps between hearing and hard-of-hearing folks called See-Through Captions.

Developed for those who are deaf or experience varying levels of hearing loss, See-Through Captions was designed by a team of hearing and deaf individuals and tested in real-life situations to ensure its effectiveness. See-Through Captions is essentially a transparent projector that converts audio to subtitles and displays those conversations on its two-way screen. Since most pre-existing related products only focus on translating audio to subtitles, Digital Nature Group gave See-Through Captions a transparent screen to guarantee that users’ facial expressions and physical gestures aren’t missed. In addition to the incorporation of physical expression, Digital Nature Group improved its automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology to optimize real-time captioning and ensure an accurate relay of communication.

The See-Through Captions product comes in two different physical forms, stationary and portable, so the ASR technology can be applied across different interactions. In developing See-Through Captions, Digital Nature Group demonstrated different prototypes in a museum setting. In the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, See-Through Captions was used in its stationary form at the museum’s front desk as well as its portable form on guided tours. Following its demonstration, Digital Nature Group decided some improvements could be made to the size and amount of text displayed on the portable product. Overall, See-Through Captions is a simple, understated solution for the DHH community that incorporates facial expression as well as accurate ASR technology to bridge communication gaps between DHH and hearing individuals.

Designer: Digital Nature Group

On a transparent screen, ASR technology converts audio to subtitles in real time. 

The transparent screen allows DHH individuals to maintain eye contact while engaging with hearing people. 

The portable form of See-Through Captions is handheld and can be applied in social settings such as guided tours and offsite meetings. 

After using prototypes in real-life situations, Digital Nature Group is improving the amount and visibility of text on the screen. 

Dyson Award-winning Blue Box helps women easily detect breast cancer at home

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The Blue Box is perhaps one of the best examples of how design thinking and problem-solving can truly make a difference to the quality of life of millions of people. An estimate of 43,600 women die of breast cancer each year… that’s from the millions of women who are diagnosed with it; sometimes often too late in the cancer stages. This stems from the fact that the medical screening procedure for breast cancer can be quite literally painful. According to the CDC, more than 40% of women opt out of getting mammograms done because it’s a pain-inducing procedure that also requires exposing yourself to X-ray radiation. A student at the Universitat de Barcelona, however, is changing that by making breast-cancer screening easy, pain-free, and something you can do at home.

When Judit Giró Benet saw the CDC report that outlined how many women skipped getting mammograms done, she realized the scope of the problem and the need to have an alternate solution. Furthermore, she was frustrated by the fact that 93.55% of breast cancers diagnosed by a mammogram are “false alarms” according to the Catalan Department of Health, and that periodic exposure to X-rays can in fact be a cause for breast cancer. In response, Benet began working on her alternative… The Blue Box – a tiny at-home device that could detect breast cancer with 95% accuracy by just scanning a urine sample. “A household owning The Blue Box can have all its female members tested at their desired frequency and convenience. After creating a profile at The Blue App, the user just needs to collect some urine in a plastic container and subsequently place it inside The Blue Box”, says Benet, a biomedical engineering student who then went on to found her own company to help develop this technology. The Blue Box uses a proprietary set of cloud-based AI-based algorithms that react to specific urine metabolites, delivering results that are up to 95% accurate. The box scans the urine sample and sends the results to the cloud, where the algorithm runs its quick diagnosis, sending the results to the app. The entire process is 100% pain-free, non-irradiating, and actually encourages women to test themselves more, helping catch breast cancer in its early stages. It also brings easy testing to places with no access to medical facilities. Since all the Blue Box needs is an internet connection, breast-cancer testing can easily be brought to remote areas, helping women from all walks of life get tested.

The Blue Box was awarded as the International Winner at the James Dyson Awards in 2020. The team has just started seeking funding to afford both the patent application as well as the next set of human studies to help refine the product and the app.

Designer: Judit Giró Benet (Founder of The Blue Box)

This biodegradable single-use dental flosser actually takes carbon OUT of the atmosphere

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“Increasingly, our material choices have become moral choices”, says Jessica Smith, a design graduate from Pratt Institute and the developer of a new kind of carbon-negative plastic – Carbyn.

Carbyn seeks to mitigate the climate crisis by creating a carbon-negative bioplastic that stores more carbon than it releases throughout its lifecycle. The world generates nearly 10 billion tonnes of agricultural waste each year. When this organic matter decomposes or is burnt, it emits carbon, which contributes to our global emissions in a significant way. Through its unique composition, Carbyn absorbs that atmospheric carbon, and its biodegradable nature means it safely decomposes into dirt once its job is done.

Carbyn is a composite of two materials – PHA bioplastic, and Biochar. PHA is a bioplastic which is produced by bacteria through fermentation. It is unique because it is both home compostable and easily formed using existing plastic processing methods, while Biochar is produced by burning organic material at high temperatures in the absence of oxygen. By combining these two materials, Jessica created a carbon-storing biocomposite that can be produced using conventional manufacturing processes. To demonstrate how effective her material was in replacing traditional plastics, Jessica decided to mold a single-use floss stick out of it. The polymer has a signature black color thanks to the Biochar, and can easily be thrown away after a single use. Whether disposed of in a home garden, a landfill, or even the ocean, the Biochar in Carbyn will actively suck carbon from the air around it before safely degrading into dirt. In fact, Carbyn even possesses the ability to make the soil more fertile as it biodegrades, helping the environment by reducing emissions, waste, and increasing soil fertility!

Carbyn made it into the International Top 20 of the James Dyson Award for the year 2020.

Designer: Jessica Smith

This electricity-free cooler is made using traditional Malaysian clay modelling techniques!

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Sometimes the ways of the past inform modern solutions better than any hi-tech, futuristic design ever could. Generally considered Malaysia’s ‘most famous secret,’ Labu Sayong is a traditional water pitcher that forms a natural cooling system through the use of ground material like earth clay. While we live in the modern world with access to units like fans and air conditioners, some have easier access to those units than others. Sustainable cooling methods like the one that comes from Labu Sayong offer insight into providing cooling systems for everyone. Kuan Weiking and Theodore Garvindeo Seah were recently recognized by The James Dyson Award group for Kuno, a sustainable, miniature refrigerator that requires zero electricity for operation.

Kuan and Seah recognized the urgency felt around keeping perishable food items cool in hot and dry climates with limited access to electricity. With over 16% of the world’s population, approximately 192 million people, without access to electricity, Kuno was designed for those in need of a cooling system requiring zero electrical power. Furthermore, Kuno was designed to help reduce our larger carbon footprint that led us to the problem of limited electricity in the first place. Designed using traditional clay-making methods and natural resources, Kuno solves modern needs through local ancient practices. Kuno’s zero-electricity cooling is achieved by utilizing double-wall potting. Sand fills the area in between the two clay pots, which is then watered in order to create a cooling effect by removing latent heat through evaporation. The sand’s cooling effect works in tandem with Kuno’s outer clay wall, which is kept porous so that it can draw additional latent heat from the inner chamber. Simply, the evaporation of water between the two pots draws heat away from the inner chamber, which stores perishable food items like fruits and vegetables. In order to keep the sand moist Kuno comes equipped with a soil planter which, when watered, distributes cool water to the sand, drawing more heat away from the inner chamber, maintaining the evaporation cycle for continued use.

The world of design draws inspiration from every corner of the globe, from science-fiction cult fantasies to fishermen’s dinghies. In a world where so many designs are possible, only a handful might feel inspired by the trouble faced by poverty-stricken communities to create better solutions. Kuan Weiking, one of the designers of Kuno, says, “As a product designer, it is important that we look to design solutions that tackle societal challenges or problems — solutions that are both practical and widely accessible.” Kuan Weiking and Theodore Garvindeo Seah began with mind-mapping to identify how they best could help improve the livelihoods of those living without electricity. Then, through temperature testing, sustainability research, and pulling building material from exclusively natural, renewable resources, this team of student designers artfully created their own proven ideation of a very possible answer for an energy-efficient cooling system.

Designers: Kuan Weiking & Theodore Garvindeo Seah

This 2mm glass speaker with crystal clear audio was designed for disassembly!

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Most of us listen to music through plastic speakers and earbuds lined with silicone, which typically end up lost somewhere in landfills once it’s time for that upgrade. Music and sound surround us and fill up our homes most likely every single day, but many of us wouldn’t even be able to say what comes of our audio systems or where they end up once we kick ‘em to the curb. The creators behind Ammos, a home audio system that produces music through a sheet of glass, hope to have designed an answer. Ammos, which stands for ‘repairability,’ is built ecologically from sustainable materials such as glass, bamboo, aluminum, and ABS thermal plastics in order to promote the product’s repairability, which in turn deepens its longevity.

In order to tackle typical consumer electronics issues such as planned obsolescence to shorten product life-cycles and an old building principle of relying on rare-earth elements, the team of industrial design engineering students went through an intensive conceptualization phase, going through several phases of ideation and iterations. The final product, a fully-operational speaker that’s held together by a slender, metallic, prism-like frame. The design team, Martin Steffner, Emilio De Jonghe, Orelio De Jonghe, Dimitrios Seleridis, Rick Cazemier, and Thor Gerard, found their main inspiration with Ammos’s most defining attribute: glass. A two-millimeter sheet of soda-lime float glass hangs between the sleek, metallic frame and produces crystal clear audio using actuators. Producing mid to high range frequencies from 200 to 20.000 Hz, the actuators are placed subtly close to the edge of the glass, providing the float glass with just enough force for it to wiggle and reverberate unnoticeably. Then, careful not to forget about the bass, the low frequencies from 20 to 200 Hz are caught and produced by an enclosed subwoofer. Just beneath the glass, touch interaction and feedback is made possible on a bamboo interface that provides visual, illuminated feedback through an LED matrix below. The bright LED matrix further intensifies the character of Ammos by providing intuitive, simple feedback through a haptic interface. Encased in the belly of the product, a powerful processing unit provides the engine for Ammos, which is constructed from aluminum in order to maintain the cooling system and increase the product’s overall recyclability.

With repairability at the forefront of the team’s focus, Ammos achieved its architectural durability with deep integration of FE analysis, sustainability assessment, and cutting edge production methods. After many rounds of audio testing in the Netherlands’ only anechoic chamber, the group of design students managed to produce Ammos so that no glues are used in construction. The design team was sure to follow the Japanese design principle, poka-yoke or “mistake-proofing,” which means for them that the whole speaker can be put together with just one Allen key, an approach they like to call, “designed for disassembly.”

Designers: Martin Steffner, Emilio De Jonghe, Orelio De Jonghe, Dimitrios Seleridis, Rick Cazemier, and Thor Gerard

JAMES DYSON award-winning window uses crop waste to capture UV light for renewable energy

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Sustainability is the next big movement when it comes to design, it is something every industry will have to apply and one of the most interesting parts of it is material exploration – what substitutes can we use or tweaks can we make to optimize our resources for the betterment of the climate? Fossil fuels continue to account for over 81% of global energy production according to the International Energy Agency and if we continue to burn fossil fuels at the current rate, global supplies of gas and oil will deplete by 2060.

To make sure we are prepared for change, we need to focus on accessible and effective renewable alternatives (like Quantum Dots). This year’s James Dyson Award winner in the sustainability category attempts to answer their question with an innovative solar energy-harvesting window made of recycled materials. The AuREUS system uses technology created from upcycled crop waste that helps walls/windows absorb stray UV light from sunlight and convert it to clean renewable electricity – absolute genius!

Designed by Carvey Ehren Maigue of Mapua University, these panels can be crafted into windows or walls which will harvest solar energy and convert it into electricity. Three things that made me instantly fall in love with this design are 1) clean renewable energy 2) using crop waste and 3) lower electricity bills. AuRUES was inspired by the phenomenon of the aurora lights which is a whimsical natural process that occurs when luminescent particles in the upper atmosphere absorb energy from UV and gamma radiation and emit it as visible light. The panels mimic this process by embedding similar luminescent particles in resin so that when the sunlight hits the panel it absorbs the UV and produces visible light. The light is then directed towards the edges of the panel where regular photovoltaic cells collect the energy to turn it into electricity. The colors of the luminescent particles come from dyes that were made from waste crops which makes this a closed-loop system.

The current renewable energy solutions can only generate electricity in the right environmental conditions. For example, solar panels can only capture and convert visible light into renewable energy and must be facing the sun to do so. Even solar farms need to be built horizontally which takes up space that could actually be used for cultivation or other resources. By using AuREUS, it eliminates the need to have certain conditions to harness solar energy which makes it more efficient and accommodating to various spaces.

“As a farmer, I see great potential in this technology to generate clean renewable energy. AuREUS System Technology conserves space using pre-existing structures, utilizes current resources and waste streams, and supports local agricultural communities,” says James Dyson. By harvesting UV radiation AuREUS opens a gateway to increase the potential of solar energy as conventional solar cells miss that part of the spectrum.

Apart from lowering costs, mitigating climate change, and supporting local agricultural communities, these panels will also reduce people’s exposure to radiation that can cause serious diseases and help in reducing the urban carbon footprint with sustainable architecture. “I want to create a better form of renewable energy that uses the world’s natural resources, is close to people’s lives, forging achievable paths and rallying towards a sustainable and regenerative future,” says Maigue. His invention is both future-looking and problem-solving for the present.

Designer: Carvey Ehren Maigue

This Audi-inspired light therapy wearable aims to resolve your Vitamin D deficiency!

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Have you stepped outside today yet? Even to stretch your legs or check the mail? No? Neither have I. Just like many office workers around the world, I spend 90% of my time indoors. Even in a pre-pandemic world, I didn’t have many opportunities to soak up some vitamin D during my workday, especially during the winter months. Not everyone has a workspace next to a window or, with winter approaching, is willing to spend their coffee break outside. However, natural sunlight has documented health benefits, especially for easing symptoms of insomnia and depression. The Audi-inspired headlamp conceptualizes a product to fit this need, while also matching the design language of the brand.

First, let’s talk about function. How well does this headlamp address the presented problem? We don’t have any Amazon reviews to reference, but we can look at the research that informed the product’s design. The headset is lightweight and hooks around the ears like a pair of glasses. The LED lights align with the user’s temples, positioned at a specific spot where light is most easily absorbed by the brain. The headset also comes in three sizes, to accommodate the skull shapes of most adults.

As a design, the Audi Lux concept matches the Audi brand seamlessly and hence is the national runner-up of the James Dyson Award for 2020. The headset’s side view features a slanted, slightly rectangular shape, similar to the headlights on an Audi car. The product also matches the brand’s general color scheme: black and metallic gray. These elements are subtle, but help the product match Audi’s design. As a branding concept, I think the Audi Lux blends well with the Audi family. However, I’m mostly excited by its function as a mobile light therapy device, which is especially relevant at this moment, when most people are stuck inside 24/7.

Designer: Luca Urlicic

This James Dyson award-winning sleeping aid uses an OLED screen to help you destress + fall asleep

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To fall asleep at night, I imagine my bed turning into a hammock, swinging somewhere on a sandy beach. It typically does the trick, but when it doesn’t, I can usually chalk it up to my anxiety or sleep apnea. Receiving 2020’s James Dyson Award, Nocturnal, designed by Alexander Braga, is an interactive sleeping aid that specifically aims to help insomnia sufferers. With user-defined technological and personalized features, this design solution makes restful sleep possible. On this point, Braga says, “Nocturnal combines both digital and beautiful design, language and form to improve sleep quality for insomniacs as a sustainable solution for the future.”

Surrounding the bed is an OLED, a film of an organic compound, emitting light, which bridges digital solutions with the human experience. The OLED screen is the sleeping aid’s primary charm and uses rollable, flexible technology in order to envelop the top half of your body and project images from the depths of your most peaceful, relaxing imagination. By promoting the beneficial and curated use of Artificial Intelligence, stressors such as anxiety and depression can be managed. Through research and conducted interviews, Alexander Braga concluded, “Dreams have always fascinated me and I wanted to add this celestial component, in combination with beautiful aesthetics to completely change the way we as humans sleep. I had looked into current bed sizes, ergonomic considerations through interaction and resting positions, and sustainable material selections. Once I achieved a better understanding of traditional sleeping habits, I looked into accessible technology that could stimulate our senses to fall asleep and provide the user with a dreamland sensation.”

Each component of the bed and its features are made up of entirely natural materials, enhancing the design’s appeal to sustainability. Additionally, the bed frame mimics the shape of a sailboat which will only enrich the user’s imagination. While these aspects certainly augment Nocturnal’s commitment to optimal rest, the defining feature is the design’s interactive programming. Nocturnal integrates haptic sensors and voice recognition technology in order to help maintain an intimate relationship with sleep, through visual, touch, and verbal feedback. Furthering that relationship, the underlying haptic sensors, inside Nocturnal’s mattress, adjusts to your body’s distinct contour, providing you with ideal comfort levels before falling asleep. Living with anxiety himself, Braga designed Nocturnal in order to supply those of us who suffer from varying mental stressors with a good night’s rest because sleeping’s for everyone, Nocturnal makes sure of it.

Designer: Alexander Braga