Introducing the winner, runners up and peoples choice
All of the finalist teams should be incredibly proud of their work, we know each and every one of them will go on to do amazing things. Our judges had a difficult time making their selection but below are the projects which really stood out to them against our judging criteria. As Lauren Kisser, Director at Amazon’s Development Centre in Cambridge and Amazon Longitude Explorer Prize judge describes:
“Every entry in this year’s final has demonstrated serious ingenuity and creativity. It has been really exciting to see the finalists commit themselves to the process and develop their ideas into prototypes with support from Amazon mentors.”
Inspired by the experience of their friend who is deaf – as well as the experience of the 11 million people in the UK who are deaf or hard-of-hearing and the UK’s 151,000 BSL speakers – the team designed, developed and coded BSL: Educate-2-Translate to interpret BSL and translate it into spoken English, and likewise translate spoken English into BSL videos. In addition, the app aims to teach BSL to non-speakers with personalised feedback to video footage of the user practising.
The expert judging pane commended BSL: Educate-2-Translate as “a cutting-edge project, with impressive teamwork. The team demonstrated an advanced use of technology and AI, creating a complex prototype that is simple to use”. The judging panel also commented that BSL: Educate-2-Translate shows great potential with large investors and were impressed by the young team’s business plan.
The team’s school will receive a prize of £20,000 for STEM/entrepreneurial resources and furthering their project.
Plasticivore is a self-contained digester box, designed for both homes and businesses, that uses mealworm larvae to break down non-recyclable plastic waste. Using sensors, the box can be remotely monitored to ensure optimal conditions for decomposition.
The judges commended the teamwork clearly shown in this project and were impressed by the forward-thinking concept. They believed the project was innovative and showed a lot of work to develop an alternative solution to a common problem, and were particularly impressed with the team’s prototype that works in real life.
The team’s school will receive a prize of £5,000 for STEM/entrepreneurial resources and furthering their project.
Pura-Sky is a device that can be worn as a badge or wristband that measures air pollution in the wearers vicinity and shares advice to reduce their exposure.
The judges felt this was a really impressive project, with a working prototype, bringing attention to the important issue of air pollution.
Rainforest DRAGEN project is a piece of monitoring hardware for recording environmental data in communities living in and by rainforests to promote conservation. It has a companion website for sharing the data and learnings to enable young people across the world to build their own versions. The team has worked with other young people in Borneo and Rwanda already.
The judges felt this was an innovative platform, with a wide range of users and intersects technology and young people impressively, with great outreach to communities around the world undertaken already.
In addition, thousands of votes were cast by the public to crown Bioclear by Team Elektrica the winners of the People’s Choice Award, receiving £5,000 for their school
Bioclear is a spherical robot that operates in water to detect and remove microplastics through infrared sensors, trapping them as a ferrofluid (made with oil and magnetite) to magnets in the back of the biobot, whilst allowing purified water to escape through a manta net.
The Judges were also hugely impressed with this entry, considering it to be of a similar quality to the runners up and were pleased to see the enthusiasm that the public showed for it.
If you’re interested in any of the winning projects or the challenge itself please email [email protected].
