Students from National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (NTUST) won a record 20 awards in the design concept category at this year’s Red Dot Design Awards in Germany, the university said yesterday.
Two of the winning projects — a “fruit crayon” and a “little explorer” — were crowned the “best of the best.” The fruit crayon, designed by Fan Cheng-tzung (范承宗) and Yin Tzu-chi (銀子奇), is a crayon that comes in the shape of fruit and is similarly structured, with the “peel” and the “flesh” in different colors.
Because of its unique shape, the new design is also able to produce a wider range of drawing strokes than traditional crayons, Fan said.
Photo: Chen Yi-ching, Taipei Times
“We hope the crayon will stimulate the imagination of children and help them be more creative in their drawings,” he said.
According to Yin, the special crayon allows children to make a wider range of finger movements than when they use traditional crayons, helping to simulate the muscles in their hands and their neural development.
The crayon can also help enhance children’s color sensitivity and observation skills, he said.
The little explorer, designed by Tai Hsiao-ying (戴筱穎), Chen Chia-wen (陳嘉文), Tsai Hui-jou (蔡卉柔), Chen Wei-ting (陳惟庭) and Chen Liao-hsun (陳廖遜), is a fishing rod equipped with a detector, camera and monitor that allows children to explore the underwater world through fishing.
The float attached to the fishing line flashes when a fish is detected, after which the user can switch on the monitor to watch what is going on under the water.
The Red Dot Design Awards are presented by the Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen in Essen, Germany, in three different categories: product design, communication design and design concept. The design concept award ceremony is scheduled for Friday in Singapore.
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