Posted 09.24.2010 at 4:45 pm
6 Comments
Bio Robot Fridge
This gel refrigerator, which cools food by emitting light, won the People's Choice award
courtesy of Electrolux Design Lab
By 2050, 74 percent of the world’s population will live in urban environments, according to a UN study. Swedish appliance manufacturer Electrolux annually challenges industrial design students to invent home appliances for small domestic spaces. This year's winners have just been announced, beating out an array of imagined household gadgets the Jetsons would envy.
Submissions addressed a wide range of household needs, from a closet that detects and removes clothing stains to a thought-controlled kitchen staffed by robots.
Although the contest accepts designs for appliances of all kinds, kitchen gadgets once again dominated the finals (last year's winner was a food-generating microwave), and the first place prize went to the Snail, a smart battery-powered magnetic induction cooking device that sticks directly to the pot it's heating. A refrigerator that suspends food in a polymer gel won second place and the People's Choice Award, and a modular, multi-use kitchen shelf system came in third. The winner gets 5,000 Euros (about $7,300) and a six-month paid internship at an Electrolux design center.
See the winners here.
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Sooo, the second smartest, most realistic and flaw-free design they got was storing food in sticky goop you could never get off it?
how could i get it out? will it be too cold to use hand?
how could we clean it, change the whole gel? seems it could not save place...
how much will this stuff cost?
How the heck would you find the leftover green jello?
How much energy loss would you get from that open polymer? It would seem that an insulator would still be in order if you were attempting sufficient and balanced chill throughout the medium.
Yes, air is a terrible conduit - but a chest freezer filled with water and kept at 35 would be more efficient (or subfreezing with a polymer. Having it open is just wasteful (if cool looking).
@solace.
"non-sticky, odorless polymer gel. The gel morphs around groceries, suspending them at their optimum temperature."
can't even bother to read about it? why bother to take the time commenting?