In national competition.
This year’s Australian James Dyson Award winner is Macaron, a smart tape measuring device that intuitively measures and records distance to help the visually impaired.
Designed and created by four Queensland University of Technology students Jake Dean, Yuma Decaux, Woo Sung Jung and Weng Hou Chan, the team of four will win £2,000 ($3,577) for their design project.
Their inspiration came from a member of the team who is blind and unable to renovate his house due to experiencing difficulties seeing the markings on a tape measure.
The device is able to take measurement without needing to read the markings, but also connects via Bluetooth to a mobile device. The app can be used to pre-set the object and distances to be measured. Voice input is also available for the setup and all can be saved to the phone app with the press of a button.
The Macaron design will now progress to the international stage of the James Dyson Award to potentially commercialise the product and win up to £30,000 ($53,660) along with two Australian runners-up including H2 Snow that converts snow into drinking water by human power (Tim Lutton from RMIT University) and Indra Mosquito Zapper insect control device made from recycled materials (Paul Eterovich from Swinburne University of Technology).