The James Dyson Award 2012 is now open for entries. The awards are open to product design, industrial design and engineering students and aim to encourage and reward the next generation of innovators. The prize is £10,000 and the brief is very simply “to design something that solves a problem.”

Previous winners include Longreach, a buoyancy device which can be propelled to a distant location, the Seakettle, a life raft which can desalinate seawater and the Folding Plug, a UK style three-pin plug that folds away, so it doesn’t have to bulk out your bag or scratch the surface of your laptop.