Elisava’s Industrial Design Engineering studies consolidate their projection through innovative proposals and international awards

Elisava’s name has always been present in the most renowned national and international awards. However, in recent years, thanks to an active strategy on the part of the Faculty of Design and Engineering of Barcelona, it has been even more prominent. One of the most obvious cases is that of Elisava’s Degree in Industrial Design Engineering and some of its students’ latest projects, recently honoured with several awards.

This reality comes at a time of favourable conditions for engineering. According to the first report by the Spanish Engineering Observatory, “in ten years, more than 200,000 engineers will be needed to meet the needs of companies, both in the industrial and service sectors”. The report also concludes that “the employment rate in the engineering sector is higher than 98%”.

The many award-winning works by Elisava Engineering students reinforce this promising future perspective. One of them is ATOM, by students Anna Martin and Marcel Rovira, which proposes the generation of fuel through hydrogen storage. This project has won the second edition of the imaginPlanet Challenge, an initiative that supports young people who have entrepreneurial ideas to fight against climate change. Both students travelled last summer to Silicon Valley, in the United States, to receive advice on obtaining a working prototype of their product.

Another award-winning project is MOTUS, the Final Degree Project by students Alex Latorre and Mar Pelach, tutored by PhD Jonathan Chacón. The part of the project that Alex Latorre designed has won the Autodesk Fusion 360 Student Design Challenge for Digital Fabrication, to which 46 projects were submitted.

For its part, LOOP, by Marc Godayol, has won first prize in the latest Spanish edition of Roca’s One Day Design Challenge, addressed to students and young professionals. This year, about 150 product designs generated in just one day were submitted, all of which had to meet the same challenge: “maximising space in bathroom furniture”. In this sense, LOOP proposes a bathroom with all the elements arranged on a single wall, incorporating the option of storage and benefiting from technology to achieve a simple, functional and easy-to-clean design.

Other recent awards have been the CIAC Talent Awards, granted within the framework of the Automotive Talent Show organised by the Automotive Industry Cluster of Catalonia. This year’s winners were Alexandre Martín (Background check category) and Bernat Llanas (Eco-Friendly category), students from Elisava’s Degree in Industrial Design Engineering. Both are part of the current Elisava Racing Team project, whose latest editions have achieved new achievements such as Onux, an innovative battery exchange and self-maintenance system in the field of motosharing.

Similarly, as an initiative of the Master in Industrial Design Engineering, it is worth highlighting Odapt, a project by the students Ivana Llobet, Patricia López and Jessica Nissen, tutored by Jessica Fernández and Xavier Tutó. Odapt has received double recognition at the international Forward AM Innovation Award, as a finalist and winner of the Audience Award; a double distinction that has translated into a prize of €25,000 for these young designers.

Odapt is a reusable and customised disc for ostomy bags created with 3D printing, which fits any type of stoma and patient’s pathology and poses a solution to the main current problem with this type of product: leaks due to poor adhesion.

Apart from the awarded projects, other remarkable projects include Byodo, by students from the Degree in Industrial Design Engineering Eva Vela and Gabriel Alcaide; a game system based on numbered hexagonal mosaics, which aims to put an end to mathematics’ negative connotation through an educational and playful tool. The project has recently been praised by Mr. Beast, the world’s third-largest content creator on TikTok, and has made an appearance on Andreu Buenafuente’s programme Nadie Sabe Nada. A few weeks ago, its authors launched a crowdfunding campaign to help them produce Byodo.

Another project worth mentioning is We Are Bits, which aims to visualise the world of quantum physics using art and technology. This initiative comes from Daniel Cavalcanti, quantum physicist and founder of Bitflow Studio; Helena Macruz, professional dancer; the virtual reality studio Thalamus RV, of which Pau Benazet, alumni and professor at Elisava, is a member; and PhD Jonathan Chacón, professor of our Degree in Industrial Design Engineering, who has also played an essential role in advising and using motion capture technology.

All of the above are good examples of the growing influence of Elisava’s Industrial Design Engineering studies, whose main objective is to add value to today’s industry and society by designing and developing products, systems and services that integrate the latest technological advances.