Future eco-saving talent

15 March 2022 | News

Hero Labs supported a design ‘makeathon’ at Imperial College recently to find solutions that will make the world a better place.

The Design Engineering Society (DesSoc) based at Imperial College London hosted the makeathon. The Society is an entirely student led initiative. The aim is to create a community and inspire a culture of innovation through the fusion of creativity and technology.

Every year DesSoc hosts a makeathon and this year Hero Labs were happy to be a sponsor of the event. Hero Labs saw it as an opportunity to support engineers of the future.

How did the competition work?

At the beginning of the weekend the teams competing were given the theme ‘Future Cities’. The students were challenged to be city planners for the weekend. They were all given the chance to be in charge of building a new city and making the world a better place.  Masters students from the Royal College of Art Industrial and Product design courses were involved too, giving an exciting mix of interests and designs over the weekend.

The brief was open and flexible to ensure students could be as creative as possible. The 18 teams didn’t disappoint.

Ideas ranged from farming on water to an energy saving braking system for the underground, repurposing city phone boxes to an app which prevented your data being collected.

Which design won?

The winning entry for Hero was Carbonless, an app which incentives green lifestyle choices in everything people do with discounts and prizes.

Hero Lab’s CEO, Steve Moore, said:

“We were really impressed with so many of the ideas. It was clear a lot of thought had gone into them all, but we knew which deserved to win. We had so many reasons for choosing Carbonless. Firstly it was a great, rational presentation, which not only aligned with the brief but we could see easily attracting funding from local authorities and others.

He added: “We felt Carbonless could be built quickly and adopted easily. It felt like the most complete submission, as well as delivering a credible and loveable idea. Good levels of consideration had been given in all aspects.”

The winners and highly commended teams are already in talks with the companies which supported the competition about internships – we look forward to finding out what they do next!