Yearly, the James Dyson Award (JDA) brings collectively design engineering college college students and graduates to share their innovations that clear up an issue.
And yearly, JDA will choose national winners in every taking part nation, together with Malaysia.
This 12 months, the honour of that title goes to Brikoole, a passive cooling system with a daring ambition of decreasing the necessity for air con in buildings.
A cool invention
The successful group contains two college students from the Asia Pacific College of Know-how and Innovation—Chee Kin Chong (Wayne) and Kah Zun Ng (Nixon).
Their resolution, the Brikoole, rethinks constructing supplies to result in developments in sustainable constructing temperature management.
Their tagline is, “Revolutionising home cooling the natural way. No electricity, no noise, just Brikoole.”
Folks all throughout the globe have been experiencing warmth waves in current months, and Malaysia is most undoubtedly not exempt.
Wayne and Nixon are immediately tackling that problem via their passive cooling system that’s designed to function inside a constructing’s construction.
“Someone that I care a lot about recently had a spike in their electricity bill to an amount that is severely affecting their family’s financial status, which led me to dive deep into this problem,” Nixon shared.
Their resolution makes use of managed airflow and evaporative cooling to scale back indoor temperatures with out exterior power.
“We’ve drawn inspiration from diverse sources, including the sophisticated ventilation systems of termite mounds, the elegant efficiency of wind catchers in traditional Middle Eastern architecture, the cooling properties of Salsabil Fountains, and the temperature-regulating capabilities of porous ceramics,” they elaborated.
The Brikoole employs a multi-layered strategy to attain its cooling impact. The outside of the brick options strategically positioned air flow holes that permit air to enter.
The air then passes via a 3D-printed honeycomb mesh manufactured from wooden PLA, although the group has plans to vary that to ceramic within the closing design.
This mesh is stored persistently moist by way of an built-in water distribution system. In order air traverses this humid atmosphere, evaporation happens, successfully cooling the air. This cooled air is channelled into the constructing’s inside.
The scholars’ testing confirmed that Brikoole was capable of obtain a discount of 6 levels Celsius on common. They shared that the full annual financial savings with Brikoole could possibly be as much as 8.02 billion kWh, resulting in a complete discount of carbon dioxide emissions by 5.21 million metric tonnes.
“It took us two months to research, test, and develop the prototype,” Wayne shared. “From our tests, we learnt that using the right geometry pattern was important in achieving optimum results.”
Scaling it up
Going ahead, the duo shared that they may concentrate on refining and increasing the capabilities of Brikoole.
“Our immediate plans include transitioning from the current wood PLA mesh to a more efficient 3D-printed ceramic internal structure,” they shared. “We are also committed to conducting comprehensive real-world testing in the tropics.”
“Additionally, we are exploring potential design variations to cater to specific building types and regional climate challenges. Our long-term vision involves fostering partnerships with forward-thinking construction companies to facilitate the implementation of this revolutionary technology, potentially transforming the landscape of sustainable architecture.”
The group shared that Brikoole is inherently modular and scalable, in contrast to conventional passive cooling strategies that usually require separate techniques or important architectural modifications.
With that in thoughts, it looks as if there’s loads of development potential for the scholars’ passive cooling system.
Meet the runner-up winners
Alongside Brikoole are runner-up winners, NEAR Exergame and Floodsack.
NEAR Exergame is a rehabilitation gadget that mixes therapeutic workouts with gaming parts to make the restoration strategy of a stroke survivor much less daunting. This, in flip, reduces dropout charges.
The answer entails a cheap pressure plate-based gaming system that gives real-time suggestions and tracks progress with an AI mannequin, motivating sufferers and bettering therapy efficacy.
It was created by college students from Universiti Sains Malaysia, particularly: Alexander Tan Wai Teng, Wei Jim Tan, Yong Jie Wong, and Ying Heng Yeo.
They shared that their inspiration for NEAR Exergame got here from private experiences with members of the family who suffered from strokes.
The opposite runner-up, Floodsack, is a buoyant storage bag for floods.
Floods are a frequent and inevitable catastrophe in Malaysia which causes hundreds of thousands of Ringgits’ price of home losses, so Floodsack was developed to protect valuables in floods. It’s designed to remain buoyant above floodwaters for weeks.
The group behind it’s from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and contains seven members—Tian You Lee, Chen Wee Eu, Yau Kin Hou, Chai Yuan Zheng, Ashraf Zhu An Bin Amir, Ian Ooi, and Isaac Cheah Yung Tze.
Congratulations to all the scholars, and we hope they proceed engaged on their spectacular improvements.
Being named the national winner has earned the Brikoole group RM29,300.
The following step now for Brikoole is to attend for the Dyson engineers’ shortlist, which can occur on October 16. Throughout this course of, Dyson’s engineers will whittle down the remaining opponents to a shortlist of simply 20 innovations. From there, the worldwide winners will probably be chosen by James Dyson on November 13.
We want group a hearty congratulations and the most effective of luck!
Be taught extra concerning the James Dyson Award right here.
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Featured Picture Credit score: James Dyson Award
