Students become ‘socially conscious inventors’ with the help of the James Dyson Foundation

Students were asked to design products that could help solve global problems.

Volunteers from the James Dyson Foundation visited Manchester Metropolitan University to encourage students to get their thinking caps on and develop solutions to current global issues, in the form of commercial products.

Sustainable and practical products

During the workshop, students were presented with a range of problems and asked to focus on just one to create their product.

Many students chose to find ways to help with the current and widespread plastics crisis, which has been extensively publicised in recent years. Their solutions ranged from creating refill stations for everyday products like shampoos and detergents, to help stop the production of wasteful plastic packaging, to deploying reverse vending machines across communities which give out monetary rewards when plastic waste in disposed in them for recycling.

Others hoped to clean up plastics in our oceans by designing carbon neutral boats to collect waste from lakes and rivers. The team said: “They already have these kind of things in place, but the boats currently being used are powered by diesel and other pollutant fuel. Our boats will be different in that respect.”

One team wanted to help improve the lives of those living in underdeveloped nations by designing a flat pack stove powered by the sun. They stated: “In many third-world countries across the globe, they have a lot of sunlight which is not being taken advantage of. If we can create something small, easy to assemble and solar powered, it can be used by anyone.”

The final team hoped to find a resourceful way of reusing coffee grounds and planned to create a device that would enable waste coffee to be used as fertiliser, either domestically or by large coffee house chains.

The James Dyson Award

The University and the James Dyson Foundation are working together to inspire the next generation of engineers. The workshop was with current second year BSc Product Design and BSc Design Engineering students, and aimed to encourage their ingenuity.

However, the Dyson team were also there to motivate students to turn their ideas into successful commercial products through the James Dyson Award.

Alex Richards, Mechanical Engineer for Dyson and a volunteer for the James Dyson Foundation, said: “The James Dyson Award challenges students and recent graduates from around the world to design something that solves a problem. We are looking for innovative, socially conscious inventors who challenge the status quo and provide meaningful solutions to real issues.

“The award presents the perfect opportunity for students to develop their own solutions to a variety of global problems and turn these solutions into commercially viable products, and potentially a business, for those successful.”

Carl Diver, Academic Lead for Industry 4.0 at Manchester Metropolitan University, added: “These students are studying environmental design this year as part of their course and are in a great position to enter the James Dyson Award. The award has a strong focus on sustainability in design and it is ideal for this cohort of students.

“During the workshop, they created some ingenious ideas and with further development, these could potentially lead to sustainable and practical products.

“In our Faculty, we encourage our students to harness their creativity and put their skills to the test at every opportunity. They have access to over 60 3D printers at our state-of-the-art PrintCity facility, to create their prototypes. Something that students at other institutions might not have access to.”

The competition runs in 27 countries across five continents and aims to tackle large-scale problems from pollution to poverty. Participants are in with the chance of winning up to £30K and an additional £5K for their University.

Entry for the awards opens in March 2020.