BANG... You're Not Dead! Buoyant Bazooka Wins James Dyson 2010 Design Award

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There were 15 finalists in the previous round of the 2010 James Dyson international design contest and now there is but one: Samuel Adeloju for his invention of the LONGREACH Buoyancy Deployment System.  Though the system looks like a sawed-off bazooka and the supposed emergency person operating it is depicted as warrior from Second Life, LONGREACH's highly explosive warhead is actually a rescue device.

 The 'bazooka' actually shoots a lifesaver to a drowning victim up to 500 feet away.  The lifesaver is made of hydrophobic foam that rapidly expands when it hits water, enabling a drowning victim to float for an extended period of time until a rescue team appears on the scene.  A ship could never save a victim from that distance propelling an air-filled raft or tube. 

Longreach Buoyancy Deploment System station on Coast Guard boat.: James Dyson 2010 Design Award Winner

Longreach Buoyancy Deploment System components: James Dyson 2010 Design Award Winner

Longreach Buoyancy Deploment System in action: James Dyson 2010 Design Award Winner

Adeloju is a 24 year old industrial design graduate of the University of New South Wales, Australia.  His inspiration came from his army reserve experience, where he learned about propulsion technology.  He then experimented with various materials trying to find one that would expand to 40 times its size upon hitting the water; he found that solution in hydrophobic foam.

Adeloju wins a £10,000 cash prize for his win and his university will also receive £10,000 to support the resources of the engineering department.

Second and third place Dyson Award winners were presented to the inventor Kimberley Hoffman of the Academy of Art University in California for her creation of the SeaKettle, a device that uses sunlight to purify sea water for those stranded at sea, and Lars Imhof and Marc Binder graduates of the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern in Switzerland, who developed the Reax. The Reax is a CPR device that regulates a patient's breathing, thereby increasing blood supply to the brain.  It allows paramedics to perform other life-saving tasks on the patient.

James Dyson Award, Telegraph