An Irish graduate who designed a tree-shaped computer will vie with other wacky designs at an international competition in New York.
Fourteen countries will compete for the €6,270 prize in the James Dyson International Design Award tomorrow.
Laura Caulwell, from Knocklyon, Co Dublin, won the Irish heat of the Award with her design, Cultivate - the Sustainable Living Computer. The branches on the tree-shaped computer hold the mouse, speakers, the Ram, the central processor, the battery and a light.
Ms Caulwell said the components can be taken from the tree and sent back to the supplier for upgrade, recycling or re-manufacture.
Among the other entries, an Austrian designer has developed "ergoskin" underwear which works through sensors to correct bad posture for physiotherapy patients; the Danish entry is a Caterpillar Scoop Stretcher, which a paramedic can use to carry a patient; while a Dutch student has come up with a solar-powered multi-hulled underwater vehicle.
The Health Management Toilet from Japan analyses the smell, colour and consistency of human waste to create readings that can be sent to a doctor, while the Australian entry is Powercleat - an invention that prevents ropes from becoming tangled on deck.
Entries will be judged by an international panel made up of vacuum cleaner tycoon Dyson and three other design experts from the United States, Japan and Italy.
PA