UNSW Industrial Design student Sam Adeloju’s Longreach Water Rescue System won this year’s James Dyson Award, surpassing the Minotaur Fire Nozzle System, Copenhagen Wheel, and Move-it cardboard hand cart for the £20,000 prize (~$32,000 split equally between the maker and their University.). [via /.]
Longreach is a man-portable system that allows for the rapid conveyance of temporary, water-activated buoyancy devices to a drowning victim’s location. It is designed to allow a victim to remain buoyant while rescue personnel prepare the appropriate response to the situation. The rescue package uses hydrophobic or rapidly expanding foam to provide buoyancy once the package contacts the water. This allows the package to be vastly smaller in size than any currently existing buoyancy device. Equipped with a light for attracting attention the Rescue Package can be propelled over 150m. Longreach is also equipped with Para-Flares for night-time Illumination. Longreach is designed to be simple to manufacture and easy to handle. Ideally used by emergency services personnel or a ship’s crew, Longreach has the potential to significantly reduce the number of drownings at sea.
10 thoughts on “Longreach rescue buoy launcher wins 2010 James Dyson Award”
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Didn’t the show ‘Prototype This’ already made this device about 3 years ago?
First thing I thought when I saw this as well. I sure the guy in the water is the same :)
The victim WAS treading water. But, since being knocked out by a flotation device… not so much.
That’s right. Sytsem. Says so right on the side.
Personally I would have gone with “Rescue Bazooka”, If these become widely used I’ll bet that’s what people will call them.
It seems like a pretty good idea…but I’m quite underwhelmed by the video quality… it takes forever for something to barely happen. And I guess I don’t get, how much of this prize has to be “design” versus actually feasible? Because here, there’s no real hint of how the propulsion system works… let alone, how the projectile deploys the life ring.
I assume all this detail is in the prize-winning presentation…but again, the video comes up short. I certainly hope they didn’t win based on just, “this is a cool idea…if it works.”