Automist Wins Dyson Award

Automist Wins Dyson Award
By Kkelly9. 九月 2009 13:17
While you may be familiar with James Dyson from his appearance in the vacuum cleaner commercial dissing four wheels in favor of the maneuverability of a giant ball, what you may not know is that he sponsors a design award, cleverly named the James Dyson Award. Participants are required to design a product that “solves a problem.” For this year’s award, more than 400 ideas were submitted by designers in 21 countries. The winner: Automist, a home water mist fire suppression system that can be integrated into any existing water tap. It was designed by two U.K. Royal College of Art students, Yusuf Muhammad and Paul Thomas, who had read that conventional home fire extinguishers are often misused or too slow to put the fire out. Their solution: use a wireless heat detector to trigger an under sink water pump to activate mist nozzles under the water tap when a fire is detected.

In addition to the name-brand honor, their ingenuity results in a £10,000 ($16,500) grant to fund development of the invention for commercialization, along with another £10,000 for the university.