A curious challenge this was for GrabCAD. A new fabric that wicks water from thin air, yet no commercial application developed for it yet. Instead of simply thinking of an idea themselves, NBD Nano decided to open the doors and ask the biggest online community of Engineers and Designers what they thought they would do with it. 3 weeks, 88 entries and a lot of discussion later, and we have a few winners to announce!
First Prize - $1,250
Congratulations to GrabCAD Engineer Victor Terán for his entry, the Nano Aquamist. An unusual entry but when you read his well-explained idea, the need and the ultimate benefit, you can see how clever this particular application is. This is what NBD said
The Aquamist entry is awarded first prize due to it’s well thought-out, yet simple design, as well as it’s potential market applications. Aquaponics and hydroponics are rapidly growing forms of small-scale agriculture which present water-replenishing needs in high humidity zones. The Aquamist design is a feasible solution to these water needs.
Second Prize - $750
And for second prize, NBD awarded GrabCADr Omega for his E-Watergenerating Bottle, one of many entries for a self-filling water bottle but the one that nailed it the best.
While there are some technical feasibility questions surrounding this design, the water bottle concept presented by Omega offers some novel and clever solutions to a few of the challenges facing the design of a self-filling water bottle.
Third Prize - $500
And for the final third prize, we have this Ceramic Atmospheric Water Generator by Ramon Canet. At first, it was difficult to understand the underlying strength or even feasibility of this winner. But once you're finished reading his response, you get how well Ramon used the characteristics of the Nanofabric to create a very powerful invention.
The Ceramic AWG is a simple redesign of an old technology. We’ve awarded this concept third prize due to the scalability and feasibility of implementation of this concept. Ceramic atmospheric water generators can be scaled to meet the needs of a small family or a small village, and can be built using materials that are readily available around the world.
We'd like to thank everyone who submitted an entry. There were some pretty amazing ideas out there, from backpack water collectors to maritime uses, to ideas for household uses. No one envies Robinson's job of making the right choice!
