HydroFlocean (H-Flo), a new device designed to prevent workmen getting trapped under water and drowning, has made the final 20 shortlist in the 2016 International James Dyson award.
The device, invented by a team of engineering students from Cork Institute of Technology, won the Irish leg of the award earlier this month.
Now H-Flo has been selected to compete against 19 other international student inventions to win the €35,000 global James Dyson award.
The CIT students were inspired to invent H-Flo following the high-profile deaths of two labourers – TJ O’Herlihy and Bryan Whelan – in Limerick last year. The men drowned after their work platform collapsed whilst they were carrying out maintenance works on Thomond Bridge over the River Shannon in August 2015.
Although a rare occurrence, if work platforms collapse over a body of water, individuals face the risk of becoming submerged whilst still connected to it.
The H-Flo separates the user from the work platform when it is submerged in water.
This year’s James Dyson Award received almost 1,000 entries that are both problem solving and pioneering. Those entries were then whittled down to 20 by a panel of Dyson engineers.
These 20 projects will now be reviewed by James Dyson, who will pick the international winner and two runners up. The international winner will be announced on 27 October 2016.
Inventions H-Flo will compete with include the first-ever Braille computer tablet for blind and partially sighted users invented by a team of students from Austria; a new jaundice management system for premature or full-term babies invented by a Russian student; and a smart contact lens that monitors glucose levels to assist in diabetes management invented by a Canadian student.
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