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Young designers impress at Design Innovation in Plastics Awards

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The Design Innovation In Plastics Awards 2023 (DIP) showcased some of the best and brightest young designers in the country, with this year’s focus on bathroom and kitchen products. The six finalists had the opportunity to fine tune each product at a workshop run by injection moulding machine maker, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag UK, and given the fact that nearly all of the finalists had limited experience with plastics it not only helped innovate the products, but also helped the finalists gain key skills and industry experience.

When talking about using plastics, winner of the competition with ‘the Flossie’, Chris Kenny of Dublin TU told BP&R: “Each material has its own challenges, working with plastics was something I hadn’t done before so it was like learning from scratch about the manufacturing processes but once you get your head around it, it really gives you a new perspective." 

The Flossie was inspired by the idea that everyone should be able to floss, something that had become incredibly important to Chris due to his brother’s disability, cerebral palsy. He said: “The idea came from seeing my brother who doesn’t have dexterity or mobility required for flossing, so I set out on a mission to help him. The device allows the user to have more control when flossing.”

In terms of the design challenges of the product, Kenny said: “Each new prototype is a new problem that gets unveiled, having to come up with those solutions is quite challenging but also incredibly gratifying.” For winning, Kenny took home a cash prize of £1,000, plus a placement or course with a DIP sponsor, a year’s membership of IOM3 and an invitation to the Lord Mayor’s Banquet as a guest of the Worshipful Company of Horners.

Chairman of the judging panel, Richard Brown commented on the Flossie: "This is a great product which is inspired by a real life challenge. We were impressed not just by the clever design, but by the user testing carried out by Chris, to show how it can help people with lifelong conditions that affect movement and co-ordination. He also gave us a detailed analysis of manufacturing ideas and costs, as well as considering its marketing."

Second place in the awards went to Kyle Farquhar of Edinburgh Napier University, who designed the “Platemate”. He told BP&R: “My product is to help get kids more involved in the kitchen. The idea is to teach them how to prepare different foods from around the world. This one is for Mexican food - fajitas, burritos and tacos. You can fold up the paddle in various orders to help to get to the design outcome.”

When talking about the design challenges, Kyle said: “A lot of it was about design challenges, finding the right materials to use, the ones that had the proper properties that I was looking for. In the end I settled on polypropylene which had everything I was looking for. Another challenge was making it look more interesting, the original one was a plain blue circle and a lot of kids when I was testing found that really boring, so it was about finding the right design that was a balance between functional and exciting.

When talking about using plastics, Farquhar said: “It’s something I haven’t really done before. I had usually worked with wood or metal so it quite challenging at times. It was also really interesting and something that I would look to use more in the future.

Kenny said the competition has helped him moving forward: “This whole experience is interesting, it’s a good opportunity to get in to meet people, to get in to do different presentations, something that you might not always get to do at university. Kyle took home a cash prize of £750 and a placement.

Third place went to an interesting design by Scott Rutherford of Edinburgh Napier University whose rotary bottle opener ‘converts downward force into Torque’. Rutherford said: “the product was designed for people with limited dexterity, grip issues and conditions in their hands. I myself have a fused wrist so that’s where the idea came from for this product. It takes 100 Newtons to open a bottle cap which is a lot of force. There is a gripper mechanism in the bottom that self-grips, once a bottle is gripped the only thing you are required to do is push downwards.”  

He added: “The biggest design challenge was that the initial model wasn’t breaking the seals on lids so in order to break that seal you had to generate quite a lot of force. While plastic did provide its challenges, through 3D printing I was able to physically see everything and test it out. There’s roughly 30 iterations of the product. There were challenges but also solutions. “

Rutherford has serious confidence in the product and is keen to take the product forward, even going as far as filing patents. He said: “From here I’m hoping to find someone to invest in it, whether that’s financially or someone to give me some advice.”

Highly Commended awards 

Missing out on the top spots were the following two designs:

Robin Jones Award

A sixth student, James Forrest-Smith, has received the inaugural Robin Jones Award. Robin was a key member of the DIP committee who sadly died last year. A tutor at London South Bank University, he passionately shared his presentation expertise to the finalists to help them showcase their products in the best possible way. This award aims t recognise both the skill in achieving this as well as the quality of the design.

James, from Northumbria University, created ‘STEPA‘ a fully adjustable stool for children to use in the kitchen, encouraging them to get involved in kitchen activities.

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