The Airdrop cleverly uses nature to create water out of thin air.

Australia is no stranger to drought and challenging agricultural conditions especially relating to climate change. Melbourne design student Edward Linacre got inspired to develop a solution to these devastating problems and created Airdrop. The device harvests water out of warm air for irrigation. A solar powered turbine fan moves the air below ground where the temperature is cooler. The warm air travels through a cool twisty pipe which creates condensation. The resulting water drains into a tank which is pumped through an irrigation system to surrounding plants.

Linacre’s Airdrop won the overall prize in the 2011 James Dyson Award. This year’s brief was to “Design something that solves a problem”. The James Dyson Award is a design competition for engineering, industrial and product design students or recent graduates which emphasizes problem solving, inventiveness and creativity.