Dezeen School Shows: an interactive game designed to increase children's engagement with tennis, and a detector used to monitor head injuries from skiing are included in Dezeen's latest school show by students at Brunel University.

Also included is a toy that promotes creative play in children and an app designed to help users reduce their environmental impact when eating.

Brunel University

Institution: Brunel University
School: Brunel Design School
Course: Product Design BSc and Product Design Engineering BSc
Tutors: Dr Arthi Manohar and Dr Eujin Pei

School statement:

"The BSc Product Design course at Brunel University London provides students with the knowledge to function in a professional context as product design practitioners.

"The programme equips them with a broad portfolio of transferable skills to enable them to work with multidisciplinary teams in manufacturing and service sector companies in new product development environment.

The BSc Product Design Engineering course at Brunel University London provides students with industrial knowledge and lifelong skills to develop industrially-manufactured products and systems with good form and function.

"The first two years contain a balanced blend of creative and technical subjects with mechanics and electronics.

"Our students have won prestigious international awards with an excellent track record of gaining placements and securing employment upon graduation."

Theo by Ioana Saioc

"With 80 per cent of children preferring digital over physical play, sports such as tennis are experiencing decreased participation due to lack of enjoyment.

"Physical play and fun are essential for children's mental and physical wellbeing. Theo is a smart ball and speaker device that creates a fun and interactive experience of playing tennis for children through audio-visual interactive games.

"The child chooses a card and inserts it into the device. The speaker will first explain the rules after which the ball lights up and the game begins.

"Equipped with inertia sensors, the ball and speaker will react to the child's actions, making sports more engaging."

Student: Ioana Saioc
Course: Product Design Engineering BSc
Tutor: Dr Eujin Pei
Email: ioanasaioc[at]gmail.com

GlideAir by Chloe Canell

"Our work productivity can be influenced by a number of things, one being the air environment.

"We breathe on average 20,000 times a day, which means the air environment we put ourselves in is constantly circulating inside our lungs and affecting our brain activity without us even realising.

"Monitoring air quality is crucial for office workers to determine whether they are working in a productive environment. GlideAir is all about turning the invisible visible when it comes to monitoring the indoor air environment.

"This is a device that measures the level of five different air quality factors – temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide, PM2.5, and PM10 – in a physically visual way.

"This is to ensure that air quality is easily understandable and to portray a good insight into our current air environment."

Student: Chloe Canell
Course: Product Design Engineering BSc
Tutor: Dr Eujin Pei
Email: clcanell25[at]gmail.com

Muse by Connor Ray

"Muse is a toy that promotes creative and active play in children aged 7-11. It aims to inspire and develop imaginative minds through music creation, taking children on a journey of sound.

"Children are encouraged to explore the outside world around them and record and collect sounds using the handheld controller.

"Muse is an innovative editing experience powered by motion that immerses children with all music experience levels within digital environments, where they can mix the recorded sounds and create their own music."

Student: Connor Ray
Course: Product Design Engineering BSc
Tutor: Dr Eujin Pei
Email: connor.ray1999[at]gmail.com

Brain Bleed Detector by Jess Logan

"Brain Bleed Detector is a device used to monitor head injuries from skiing to detect brain bleeds, which is powered by the heat of the head.

"Brain bleeds often aren't detected immediately and the patient may seem fine for a few hours, sometimes days after the accident.

"CT scans are the only way to detect them and doctors can then drain the blood and prevent permanent damage or fatality.

"An accelerometer on the helmet measures the force at which the head has been hit during a crash and determines whether a CT scan is needed to check for a brain bleed."

Student: Jess Logan
Course: Product Design Engineering BSc
Tutor: Dr Eujin Pei
Email: jess.logan[at]hotmail.co.uk

Nürtra by Joshua Li

"Some children require daily medication to combat deadly illnesses but there is a lack of innovation in current devices used for pediatric medication delivery.

"Anxiety while taking medication, preparation and delivery failures from parents, poorly designed devices, and the stigma associated with these conditions can lead to reduced therapy adherence, thereby possibly endangering their lives.

"Nürtra, a pharmaceutical company collaboration, addresses these difficulties by enhancing children's medication experiences through play, increasing familiarity with use and helping to cope with treatment.

"The modular attachments suited to different age groups are designed to reduce choking hazards and assist parents in medication preparation."

Student: Joshua Li
Course: Product Design Engineering BSc
Tutor: Dr Eujin Pei
Email: joshgajunli[at]gmail.com

Bhari by Kripa Gurung

"More than 40 per cent of people in the general population have difficulty swallowing tablets and therefore take liquid medication.

"As there is a market gap and a need for liquid pharmaceutical delivery devices to be offered commercially, a solution was designed to address pharmaceutical dose misunderstanding, travel-related concerns and non-compliance difficulties.

"Bhari is a product designed to assist adults who take liquid medication while travelling, hence reducing the risk of non-adherence to treatment due to inconvenience.

"The device includes interchangeable compartments of different measurements and a child-safety lock."

Student: Kripa Gurung
Course: Product Design Engineering BSc
Tutor: Dr Eujin Pei
Email: kripagrg0[at]gmail.com

Sandi by Archie Read

"Safe sanitation is an essential part of daily life that plays a crucial role in public health and allows sustainable social and economic growth.

"However, 1.9 million deaths are caused by poor sanitation, and 94 per cent of open defecation occurs in rural areas. Sandi is a sustainable toilet for rural Sub-Saharan Africa, designed to meet the UN sustainable development goal 6.2.

"It uses locally sourced natural material as the flush medium – its mechanical water-free flush paired with container-based sanitation allows it to operate off-grid.

"Furthermore, urine-diversion separates waste streams allowing for decentralized waste treatment that produces valuable fertilisers and soil conditioners."

Student: Archie Read
Course: Product Design Engineering BSc
Tutor: Dr Eujin Pei
Email: agd.read[at]hotmail.com

PlanetBased by Lauren Menzel

"PlanetBased is an app that holistically integrates into users' lifestyles to empower them to successfully reduce the environmental impact of their diet.

"The UK population's current diet means that the food system makes up a significant proportion of the anthropic environmental impact on the planet.

"In a 2021 UK-based study, 53 per cent said they would like to reduce the environmental impact of their diet. However, 71 per cent of those said barriers prevented them from achieving this goal.

"PlanetBased equips users with a comprehensive set of tools such as a personalised dietary quiz, a catalog of customisable low environmental impact recipes, an intelligent shopping list, informative dietary and food item comparison tools, a dietary management system that allows the user to track progress and a support system facilitated by the PlanetBased community."

Student: Archie Read
Course: Product Design BSc
Tutor: Dr Arthi Manohar
Email: lauren.n.menzel[at]gmail.com

ChatterLearn by Sam Supan

"ChatterLearn is a voice-interface classroom smart speaker which combines conversational AI and gamified educational quizzes to encourage the development of verbal communication and collaboration skills for British KS3 school students.

"The classroom smart speaker uses lights and sound to provide interactive feedback on the student group’s learning and a push-to-talk button ensures maximum data protection.

"ChatterLearn is designed to be used with current classroom pedagogical practices; questions can be easily uploaded and adapted between different subjects, teachers and year group classes to encourage teachers to integrate ChatterLearn into lesson plenary or starter activities."

Student: Sam Supan
Course: Product Design BSc
Tutor: Dr Arthi Manohar
Email: supansamantha[at]gmail.com

Riley the Reading Monster by Chloe McCourt

"Reading is a fundamental skill, yet many children don't get the support required to develop their reading at home.

"Riley the Reading Monster is a toy aimed to be used independently by a child so that they can learn phonics while a parent is unavailable to read with them.

"By pushing the letter tiles through Riley's mouth, NFC is used to display the chosen letters on the screen with the phonetic sounds projected through the built-in speaker.

"When the chosen word is displayed, the green button activates the toy to phonetically say the word and repeat it in standard English."

Student: Chloe McCourt
Course: Product Design BSc
Tutor: Dr Arthi Manohar
Email: chloemccourt[at]gmail.com

Partnership content

This school show is a partnership between Dezeen and Brunel University. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.