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DUBAI: The FireOut system designed by five Heriot-Watt University engineering students to control wildfires in an area suffering from repeated outbreaks has won the 2022 National James Dyson Award.
The students – Tasneem Nawar, Deenah Sabaahat, Eman Rashid, Zahid Rehman and Zahrah Tungekar – identified areas that typically suffer from bushfires during the dry season, which tends to see heavy rainfall during the rainy season. This inspired the team to devise a system to store rainwater during the wet season so that it can be used to control bushfires during the dry season.
The winning team received a cash prize of AED 24,000 to use in the next stage of the development of their invention. FireOut joins runner-up YESCOMPST and IoT Integrated Power Shaft Health Monitoring to enter the James Dyson Awards on the international stage. The international shortlist will be announced on October 12, and the international winners will be announced on November 16.
The team consists of Tasneem Nawar, Deenah Sabaahat, Eman Rashid, Zahid Rehman and Zahrah Tungekar
Image source: provided
prevent problems
Dr. English. Suaad Al Shamsi, one of the competition’s local judges, said: “We were fascinated by the invention of FireOut and all the judges praised how the students identified a pressing current problem and devised a potential solution to prevent it. The team focused on Sustainability and environmental considerations to create a technology that can help fight fires in vulnerable areas has impressed us.”
As climate change exacerbates catastrophic bushfire conditions globally, scientists expect extreme fire weather will continue to become more frequent and severe without substantial and prompt action.
how does this work
FireOut uses sensor cameras that, once a fire is detected, alerts the control room, which then transmits the location of the wildfire via an antenna-assisted radio module. When the signal is received, the controller automatically operates the pump to distribute the collected rainwater from the tower to the sprinklers, which keep the fire under control until first responders arrive. Once controlled, the pump can be turned off so that the tower can collect rainwater again.
Existing technology currently only detects wildfires and waits for first responders to arrive at the scene, which can cause fires to spread rapidly, causing additional damage to land and wildlife.
The Heriot-Watt University team found that first responders often have limited water supplies, which can cause fires to burn longer until enough water is provided to put them out.
FireOut designed the rainwater storage system, sensor cameras and communication system to pump large amounts of water to the sprinklers when needed. This results in the firefighting process starting before first responders arrive, saving time, lives and land.
urgent action required
Rashid, one of the student inventors, said: “We are all shocked by the devastating bushfires we have seen in the media over the past few years, especially in places like Australia. The number of lands is alarming, which is why we know urgent action is needed.”
His teammate Lehman added: “It’s not easy to come up with an idea on this scale and test it out. Our first hurdle was trying to make all the materials we use as fire-resistant and sustainable as possible. Another challenge we faced was The collection of water and trying to calculate how much stored water per land parcel is enough. Also, we want everything to be locally sourced and sustainable, so there are additional challenges in terms of sourcing and material costs. We want our The design can be specific to the site and respect the local land and people.”
Solve global problems
For the past five years, the James Dyson Prize has been challenging entrepreneurial undergraduates and recent graduates in engineering and design in the UAE to “design something that solves a problem”. The aim is to be broad and open-ended, with short assignments students taking on big global problems and applying innovative technologies to solve them.
Dr Ali Hilal Al Naqbi, juror for this year’s award, said: “Receiving innovative global awards in the UAE, such as the James Dyson Award, is a great starting point for the future talent pool as it encourages young designers to be entrepreneurial and business-minded, It also provides them with a platform to be recognised among renowned engineers. This year’s winning design has engineering and innovation at its core, which is why we are so impressed.”
other winners
YESCOMPST – Designed to prevent food waste with a smart app designed to plan and manage groceries with barcode scanning, checking available stock in the fridge, expiration date notifications and customized recommendations for recipes for products that are about to expire shop shopping. The second component is designed to mitigate the impact with a safe indoor portable compost bin that turns food waste into healthy soil.
Inventors: Abdulrahman Alshamsi, Humaid AlYammahi, Mahra Alremeithi, Fatima Almeraikhi and Hamdan Alshehhi.
University: Abu Dhabi Institute of Technology
IoT-Integrated Power Axle Health Monitoring – Designed to improve the safety of modern connected vehicles. The vibrations are collected by high-precision accelerometers (accelerometers). These vibrations are sent through a data acquisition unit consisting of DEWE-43 and MyRio devices to convert the analog signal into a digital signal for processing. The signals from the axes are sent to the Raspberry Pi, which is installed with the computing device and is ready to perform localization decisions when a problem is detected. Once the detection reaches the threshold limit, the information will be transmitted to the Internet of Things (IoT) connected to the ground control center.
Inventor: Mohammad Adnan Azmi
University: Curtin University
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