The James Dyson Award is an international design award that celebrates, encourages and inspires the next generation of design engineers. It’s run by the James Dyson Foundation, James Dyson’s charitable trust, as part of its mission to inspire young people about design engineering.
The winners of this year’s UK James Dyson Award were design students Yusuf Muhammed and Paul Thomas, with a product called Automist.This natty little device fits onto your kitchen tap, and in the case of a fire, it produces a mist which will cool the room temperature, and also help to starve the fire of oxygen. Simple, yet very effective.
So, a wee bit more detail for those of you who are as nosey – or as I like to put it, curious – as I am. The mist-producing unit consists of a mixer tap with multiple mist nozzles which are mounted discreetly underneath the tap, and plumbed in to the mains water supply. Producing the mist needs high pressure though, so a pump is fitted underneath the sink to provide this pressure.
Having this system is all well and good, but you need to be able to detect that there is a fire occurring, and also be able to separate that from normal cooking heat etc. So, a smart fire sensor is fitted in the ceiling, which will activate the system by beaming down a warning to the unit in the sink. It is clever enough that it won’t be fooled by someone (usually me!) burning the toast.
Fires need heat, air and fuel in order to burn. The mist that is produced by this clever invention turns to steam during a fire, cooling down the temperature and pushing out the oxygen that the fire needs to keep burning. In tests, the Automist system suppressed fires in three to four minutes, and best of all, there was no manual fire-fighting involved, making it super-safe.
As 60% of domestic fires occur in the kitchen, this is a jolly good idea. It is also effective on both electrical and liquid fires, unlike the traditional sprinkler systems.
I must say, I was super impressed with this invention. It did get me thinking about the different extinguishers that are used in different situations. I know from my recent post about wet chemical extinguishers that oil fires, for example, should definitely not be tackled with a water extinguisher, but how do you easily know which extinguisher is for which type of fire? Well, fire extinguisher signs are there to help. These clearly show what each type of extinguisher should be used for, and are a must for use in offices and other work premises. Easy and quick to use and understand – always important when it comes to fire safety.
So, congratulations to Yusuf and Paul, I hope we’ll be seeing their brilliant system in homes across the country soon, and in the meantime let’s hope they enjoy their £10,000 prize money…
Picture from http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/uk_james_dyson_award_winner_announced_14583.asp
