Taiwanese Student Designs selected among the top three of the Red Dot Design Award

    46 pieces won “Best of the Best Award” out of 3672 entries competing in the 2012 Red Dot Design Award in Germany. Among them, Taiwanese students won 6. In Singapore, two entries, “Add Up” from National Taipei University of Technology and “Float Base Station” from NTUST, competed for the “Luminary”, the highest design prize in Germany.  The award is awarded to “Float Base Station” at last.

    The entry “Float Base Station”, designed by Huang Hsin Ya and Huang Pin Chen of National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, is a communication device that is aimed to solve communication problems in remote areas during natural disasters. Equipped with a simple communication system and a balloon, the device can be airdropped or carried by rescue teams into remote areas and floats aloft, sending communication signals. The balloon also generates wind energy with the built-in fan blades and a power generator.

“Float Base Station”

Designer Huang Hsin Ya

Designer Huang Pin Chen

    The entry “Add Up”, designed by Deng Pei-chih and Hsieh Tsai-ni of National Taipei Univerisity of Technology, is a system that allows spare foreign currency to be put to good use. Set up at boarding gates in the airport, the device adds credits to cell phone or Internet phone accounts, or donates money to charity, with the change that travelers put in. Deng says that the idea is inspired by his mother who is a tour guide. Even with only 1 dollar donated each time, with the 200 million travelers each year, a big sum of money can be received by charity.

“Add Up”