The Dyson brand is known in the home appliance world as the premier source of all things that suck and blow, but perhaps things are making a bit of a turn now that Dyson engineers have begun working on things that can take flight. As part of the annual Challenge Dyson competition, where in-house engineers are asked to design something completely irrelevant to their daily jobs to exercise their imagination, this year’s objective was to make something that can fly primarily using Dyson device parts.
The challenge, also known as Airborne, saw engineers use anything from a Dyson digital motor to power propellers, to the signature vacuum ball base as the body of the manmade plane. The devices can’t just levitate to complete the task – designers must also navigate their planes through a short obstacle course, making sure not to pop the oversized balloons along the path.
It’s a cool project that reminds tinkerers everywhere that technology parts can be recycled and used in a magnificent amount of ways. Concurrently, it’s also neat to know that Dyson engineers can build things that fly. Albiet, some of the prototypes aren’t perfect (they are, after all, built with vacuum cleaner and fan parts) but the idea of a possible Dyson plane in the future? We’ll take one ticket on that ride please.
