Design in Plastics competition seeks products to promote self-sufficiency

The long-running plastics design competition is open for entries from undergraduate students

IOM3 supports the annual Design in Plastics (DIP) competition for undergraduate students, together with the Worshipful Company of Horners, and sponsors from leading design and plastics organisations. Established in 1985, it is the longest running plastics competition of its kind in Europe,

The award brief for 2024 is for products that don’t require conventional power sources to function. Creative designers interested in working with plastics are being asked to design a product that can work off-grid, using anything from solar, wind, tidal, thermal, kinetic, or bio and mechanical energy sources. The product must be aimed at the domestic or sports and leisure markets.

Chairman of DIP, Martin Sixsmith, said: ‘This is a challenging but dynamic theme which will encourage undergraduates to make creative use of the versatility of plastics.  We’ll be looking primarily at the design concepts rather than the minute detail of the mechanism of the product – but the mechanism does need to be feasible, in principle, based on research.

‘There are plenty of ideas out there from which to draw inspiration. Some examples are highlighted on the entries page of our website, which students are encouraged to look at.’

Students must submit their projects by 31 March, when a panel of industry judges will examine the entries and choose their finalists. The award ceremony takes place on 5 July. Full details are available at www.designinnovationplastics.org