Who won 200,000 Dollars at the James Dyson Award 2021

The national stage of the Young Engineers and Designers competition is over

James Dyson Award 2021

. The names of the winners and the best projects were announced.

The panel of judges: Alexander Grek, editor-in-chief of Popular Mechanics magazine, Valery Istishev, technoblogger for the YouTube channel about gadgets and technology, Elena Cherkas, head of the Technology section at RB, and Anatoly Kulbatsky, director of the Marusya product at Mail Group.

1 place

The national winners of the contest were Vadim Stozhik and Alexey Rezepov, who developed the Braille e-book for blind and visually impaired people.

Braille e-book can be loaded with several books at once, while the gadget itself is lightweight and small. The system displays words and sentences on a tactile panel, displaying Braille with raised dots. Rewind text with a button.

Vadim Stozhik and Alexey Rezepov will get a grant in the amount of 200 thousand Dollars from James Dyson Charitable Foundation for realization of their project.

2nd place

Dagon ANPA – autonomous unmanned underwater vehicle, which will detect and map oil spills. The Braille will be able to work for about a month without recharging, “patrolling” the territory in question and transmitting the coordinates of areas with high concentrations of oil products. The system will consist of four modules with contactless communication and power transfer. They can be combined in different ways to get the right set of features. Besides, the modular architecture will allow easy replacement of defective units without returning the device to the shore.

Anton Tolstonogov, Dmitry Skalsky, Platon Pryazhennikov, Dmitry Stabrovsky and Ivan Chemezov developed the Dagon ANPA.

3rd place

“Sensory,” adaptive clothing with built-in tactile decorations aimed at reducing stress in people with autism spectrum disorder ASD .

Anna Lychagina, in collaboration with the Siberian Design Center, conducted a study that showed that youth with autism have a need for certain clothing and accessories. As it turns out, loose clothing in which you can “burrow” and tactile accessories have a calming effect on them and may be just about the only way to reduce stress in public places. To open up that possibility, Anna created a sweatshirt with wide sleeves, loose cuffs and a deep hood. For sensory relief, tactile elements can be sewn on it or attached with Velcro, which can be easily replaced if necessary. The project was the first step towards the creation of adaptive clothing for youth and children with disabilities.

All three projects were nominated for the international James Dyson Award 2021. The finalists will have an opportunity to win the grand prize – 3 million Dollars for the development of their projects – in the general category and in the field of sustainable development.