Bumpy food labels and injury-detection suit among Dyson Award winners

Food packaging that becomes bumpy when the goods go off and a suit that shows paraplegic athletes when they are injured are among the winners in the national round of the 2014 James Dyson Award.

Solveiga Pakstaite developing the Bump Mark label
Solveiga Pakstaite developing the Bump Mark label

The national award winners and runners-up will now go forward to be considered for the international award, which will be announced in November.

The winning UK project is the Bump Mark label, developed by Solveiga Pakstaite, from Brunel University. Pakstaite has developed bio-reactive food packaging that lets consumers find out if their food has gone off simply by running their finger over the label.

The Bump Mark label
The Bump Mark label

The food labels are filled with gelatine over a bumpy surface. The gelatine starts off as a solid, meaning the bumps cannot be felt, but over time it turns to liquid, revealing the bumps and showing that the food packs are old enough for the contents to have gone off.

Pakstaite, who  has been awarded £2000 to develop her concept, says: “The label simply copies what the food in the package is doing, so the expiry information is going to be far more accurate than a printed date.”

Four runners up have also been chosen from the UK, to go forward for the international award.

The Bruise project, by Dan Garrett, Ming Kong, Lucy Jung and Elena Dieckmann from the Royal College of Art, is an injury detection suit for disabled athletes who have loss of sensation in their bodies.

The Bruise project – an injury-detection suit for athletes with disabilities
The Bruise project – an injury-detection suit for athletes with disabilities

Jack Trew, from Birmingham City University, has created the Spokefuge, is a low-tech centrifuge, powered by a bicycle, which is aimed at detecting anaemia in developing countries.

The MOM project, by James Roberts of Loughborough University, is an inexpensive inflatable incubator aimed at cutting the number of premature child deaths in refugee camps.

MOM – an inflatable incubator for premature babies
MOM – an inflatable incubator for premature babies

Gravity, which has been developed by the RCA’s Guillaume Couche, Daniela Paredes Fuentes, Pierre-Yves Paslier and Oluwaseyi Sosanya, is a tool for sketching in 3D using augmented reality.

Other international winners include the Uplift, a personal mobility cart from the USA, and Remora, a biodegradable fishing net system from Spain.

Start the discussionStart the discussion
  • Post a comment

Latest articles