James Dyson Award winner announced

The James Dyson Award winner has been crowned today, anointed with efficiently and accurately directed air by James Dyson himself. The winner for the 2010 James Dyson Award is a buoyancy bazooka called Longreach, a device that shoots an emergency buoyancy aid up to 150m out to sea. A red and white life ring this is not. It’s packed with flares and expands to forty times its original size when it hits the water.

The designer of the buoyancy bazooka is Samuel Adeloju, 24, an industrial design graduate from Sydney. He’ll receive a £10,000 cash prize, and his engineering faculty at the University of New South Wales will also receive £10,000. Best of all, he’ll be popping off to see where the magic happens at the Dyson research, design and development centre.

Samuel said: “After learning about propulsion technology in grenade launchers, I had to find a chemical that would expand to forty times its size in just fifteen seconds upon hitting water. After four months of testing I found that hydrophobic foam worked and soon after the concept for Longreach was developed.”

Samuel may also be crossing his fingers: last year’s winner is now employed in the Dyson fold as an engineer, and Dyson is on the lookout for 350 new recruits.

Full video of the winner of the James Dyson Award, Longreach: the buoyancy bazooka, below…

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