Two inventions by McMaster students get Canadian James Dyson Award recognition

Two inventions by McMaster University students are solving everyday life problems. And they went big at the Canadian James Dyson Awards this year.

A group of four engineering students at McMaster created Taco; not a traditional Mexican dish, but an assistive tool that would allow people to slice vegetables and fruits thinner, straighter and safer."

Simple and niche for its users, the device adds a guide for knives to a cutting board to help those with Parkinson's or tremors or different conditions that make it harder for them to (chop) food," said Afeef Khan, one of the four students who invented Taco.

The invention claimed the Canadian prize for the international competition that showcases engineering innovations from university students.

The name for their invention isn't an acronym but what it looks like - a taco.

Khan said the very first prototypes" of the product looked like a taco - with walls for a knife to slice through as a guide. The name stuck around to pay homage to one of the earlier prototypes," while the product continued its journey to be refined.

The idea clicked when Eden Lazar, one of the other team members, met a resident at a seniors' home who was passionate about cooking but had Parkinson's disease.

(She) helped us realize we could design an accessible device for those wanting to independently cook but required some assistance," Lazar said.

Lazar, Khan, as well as fellow team members Caitlin Kuzler and Clayton MacNeil, won the 2022 Canadian James Dyson Award and the $8,500 prize that comes with it.

The team will now be in the running for the international competition for the James Dyson Award. The shortlist will be announced on Oct. 12.

Another group of McMaster students were runners-up for the Canadian award for innovating an open-source device that recycles plastic bottles into 3D-printer filament for a lower cost - solving two problems at once.

Swaleh Owais and Reiten Cheng, the creators of Polyformer, met at an online community of programmers.

Owais was working at a 3D-printing centre in Rwanda after graduating from McMaster University earlier this year. He saw that people were not using 3D printing as much due to the high price of importing filament into the country."

There was also a lack of infrastructure to recycle plastic bottles in Rwanda - offering the perfect combination of opportunity to Cheng, who lives in California, and Owais to design, program and build the machine.

Polyformer now takes plastic bottle shreds and converts them into filament, giving plastic waste a new life.

Owais said he met a woman who sold beautiful handmade bamboo lamps in Rwanda, but the cost of producing the lamp was high.

So she collaborated with designers to design a lamp that can be made in Rwanda using predominantly 3D-printed components produced via Polyformer filaments," Owais told The Spectator.

She was able to drastically increase her product value and make higher-quality products," he added.

The duo is now working to deploy several Polyformer machines at 3D labs in Rwanda, increasing accessibility for local entrepreneurs.

Because the device is open source, anyone can access the code online, opening paths for others to reproduce the same or similar product to Polyformer.

Ritika Dubey is a reporter at The Spectator. rdubey@thespec.co