Editor Rebekah Jordan attended the Design Innovation in Plastics (DIP) Awards hosted at the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3) in London and caught up with the six finalists.
Key Highlights:
- At the DIP Awards 2024, contestants were to design an off-grid product for independent living, aimed at leisure or household markets, and to be made primarily of plastics.
- The Glasgow School of Art dominated the top three spots and the top spot went to Isabel Payne with her ‘SafiCase,’ a device for cleaning and sterilising reusable menstrual cups.
- The judges also awarded three highly commended prizes, each receiving £250.
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Winne Isabel Payne with SafiCase
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Jem Mitchell with SenTree
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Joe Shade with Bijou Smart Hive
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Jake Lee with SkinTemp
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Gargi Agrawalla with Ear Boost+
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Brandon Hopkins with SaltBuoy
This year’s contestants were asked to design an off-grid product for independent living, aimed at leisure or household markets, and to be made primarily of plastics. The panel of industry judges was ‘blown away’ by the innovations and creativity behind the next generation of designers. But it was the Glasgow School of Art that truly stole the show, with their students dominating the top three spots.
Claiming the winning spot was Isabel Payne with ‘SafiCase,’ a device for cleaning and sterilising reusable menstrual cups, using steam from minimal water. “The menstrual cup replaces 10 years of disposable sanitary products, which in itself is a huge cost-saving and much better environmentally,” Isabel said, highlighting the gap she identified in the market. “But there's no way of cleaning it or sterilising it portably unless you use the current way with a stove or in a microwave which requires electricity and a lot of water.” The flexible case design utilises medical-grade silicone, whilst the housing is made from polypropylene, and the solar battery base from high-density polyethylene.
Isabel’s top place earned her a £1,000 cash prize, a placement with a DIP sponsor, a year’s membership with IOM3, and an invitation to the Lord Mayor’s Banquet as a guest of the Worshipful Company of Horners. Commenting on her achievement, she remarked: “It means such a lot to have a platform for dealing with the issue of period poverty, which is rarely spoken about, despite affecting so many people worldwide and around 40 percent of women in the UK. I hope this design helps bring awareness for reusable options, and helps other people decide to invest time in designing more solutions, as there is very little innovation in this area.”
Second place went to Jake Lee with a cold-water temperature sensor that alerts users when their body temperature drops to dangerous levels in the water. ‘SkinTemp’ is powered using the temperature difference between the user’s skin and the cold water using what is known as the Peltier effect.
Being a regular surfer himself, Jake’s idea stemmed from recognising the lack of safety devices for cold-water activities. “Going out surfing with my friends in cold waters up in Scotland, I noticed that they would be waiting a few hours for their bodies to warm up and be able to drive home,” Jake described. “The only products available are made for sports people to track their internal temperatures, but they’re also very expensive. This is a different use case where it’s about safety and the user understanding their bodies in a different way.” For the plastics used, Jake mentioned that he used different polymers for different parts: “The key part is fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP) which is flexible enough that it can curve to fit the contours of the user’s back.” He won £750 and a placement with a DIP sponsor.
Taking third place was Jem Mitchell with a solar-powered sonic deterrent that protects trees from being overgrazed by animals such as deer. ‘Sentree’ uses foil sensing interfaces, which interpret and respond when an animal tries to eat its bark or leaves. Jem explained that the technology works by “capacitive touch.” When an animal touches the tree, it disrupts the tree’s micro-electric field. He added: “Sentree can pick this up with a microcontroller and through the foil sensing interfaces. It then releases a sound to scare the deer off.” Jem wins £500 and a placement with a DIP sponsor.
“This innovation is set to be a less invasive, sustainable method to protect wildlife,” Jem proposed. “There are hundreds of millions of plants that are damaged across Europe each year. The current solutions are deer fencing, tree guards, chemical solutions which are all very non-specific and massively disrupt animal life.” Polypropylene was the primary plastic implemented in the design because of its diversity and accessibility. Jem continued: “I also used thermoplastic polyurethane which is a great elastic and durable plastic to ensure high quality over a long time.”
Highly Commended awards
The judges also awarded three highly commended prizes, each receiving £250.
Gargi Agrawalla, Loughborough University, showcased ‘Ear Boost+,’ a compact healthcare case that tackles the challenge of cleaning and dehumidifying cochlear implants. Inspired by her own experiences, Gargi described it as frustrating to remember to clean and dehumidify cochlear implants every night, putting quite a burden on the user. She designed a user-friendly solution that combines dehumidification and simultaneous battery charging. In terms of the plastics used, Gargi said: “I decided to use PP as it has all the desired properties to maintain and charge the device.”
Brandon Hopkins from London South Bank University created a free-drifting oceanographic data buoy collecting real-time data for pollution, weather and climate research. After going down a rabbithole of buoy research, Brandon identified limitations in existing buoys reliance on solar panels and lithium-ion batteries. Coming up with the idea of using saltwater batteries, Brandon introduced ‘Saltbuoy,’ to leverage the ocean’s natural resources. He told BP&R: “I thought actually maybe we could utilise the fact that we've got the entire ocean at our fingertips,” he described. “Why don't we just use the constant flow of that?”
Describing the plastics used to design the product, he said: “I used recyclable first-generation polyethylene because it’s really good in water environments and it’s used in other data buoys. “
Joe Shade, De Montfort University, presented his ‘Bijou Smart Hive’ which uses solar power and sensors to create a beekeeping solution. The innovation monitors the conditions of the smart hive to keep the bees healthy and productive. Using remote monitoring, users can track the bee’s health and status in real-time via a smartphone app. He explained: “Bees tend to die in extreme weather conditions. If you can maintain homeostasis and keep it in a nice temperature window, the bees live longer and they're also more productive. They produce more honey and they pollinate more crops, so it's better for the environment and better for the bees.”
Talking about where the inspiration came from, Joe told BP&R: “My dad has always wanted to keep bees and he’s always talking about it. So when I saw the brief to design an off-grid sustainable product, it just sort of popped into my head.”
Chairman of judges Richard Brown commented on the overall successful event: “All the finalists showed they have the skills to bring new, innovative and functional products to market. Creativity and invention are alive in our future designers, demonstrated in the many entries we received overall.”