James Dyson would never have gone very far without being a little creative. And more often than not, creativity comes from working with limited resources. Like getting 750 Engineers at Dyson to create machines to race through an obstacle course, using only broken vacuum cleaners.
Jude Pullen, Design Engineer with Dyson gave a scoop on this year's inter-company event - The Dyson Ball Challenge. All of the old, broken or returned Dyson Vacuums, specifically the Dyson Ball, must be the competitor's sole source for parts. Jude, as a part of team 'Ball-der-dash' decided to place all the necessary locomotive and control components within the ball, rather than outside it.
Not wanting to go for the simple (but in hindsight, very effective) direct-drive for a ball, we opted to create a ‘Mechanical Hamster’ and put it inside the transparent ball. This involved using two ‘omni wheels‘- one to power forwards and one to steer left or right. The rolling mechanism needed to be weighted to give it a low centre of gravity. The two haves of the ball were made from PC for the rigid inside (rolling skin) and PET for the durable outside – seamlessly joined with recessed screw mounts and the surface was coated with a silicone rubber for grip. A small LED was placed at the ‘front’ so we could see which way the ‘hamster’ was facing.
Team Ball-der-dash's unique solution wasn't the race winner. Nevertheless they earned 'Most Ambitious Design" award and my very own "Best Team Name" award.
The last thing you'd ever want to do with a regular electric heater is to tape a gigantic mylar bag and see what happens. But these are Engineers, not amateurs.
The heating elements on the Dyson Hot are positioned farther from the outlet than ordinary heaters, so there is less of a fire-risk than you'd expect. Nevertheless, don't try this at home - even if you have a giant warehouse at your disposal!
