The result of the public vote is in and the winner is...
One of the highlights of this year's OS Outdoors Show was the final of
Alpkit's coLab Award
for outdoor product innovation and once the public votes were tallied
up, the
winner
was none other than
Kevin
Beeden, aka OM regular 'Captain Paranoia' for his
Squeezebox stove.
Each of the nine finalists had a small booth to show off their
invention and canvas for votes. When we dropped by on Friday, not
everyone was there, but we chatted to several of the finalists
including Kevin and were very impressed with the standard of entries.
The winning
Squeezebox
is a an ultra-lightweight integrated cooking system that combines
windshield and pan support in one neat, concertina-stye folding foil
unit weighing just 37 grammes or so and powered by a Trangia-type meths
burner. See this
OM
article for an overview of its development.
We reckon it's a well deserved award for a practical, carefully
developed idea that has real potential in the ultra-lightweight market.
We were also impressed with runner up John Martin's lazer
White-out torch
which projects a grid of horizontal lines onto the snow in poor
visibility - above. The idea is that the lines provide the user with a
reference point, give perspective, reduce stumbling and crucially,
could tell you whether you're about to walk off the edge of a
cornice... A second vertical laser can be used to indicate the
direction of the bearing being followed. Interesting stuff.
In third place was the SOS Sleep Mat from Simon Masters, a sleeping mat
with SOS or other internationally recognised emergency symbols printed
on it, meaning your sleeping mat also doubles as an emergency
aid.
Finally, we were also dead impressed with Liz Asquith's
Jamulator - just up
there - an ingenious modular crack simulator designed to allow route
setters at climbing walls to create a variety of constantly changing
cracks with the added bonus of easy cleaning of chalk, grease, sweat
and other nastiness from the holds. A really neat idea we thought.
Congratulations to all the finalists who'd obviously put a lot of hard
graft into their ideas.
More information at
www.alpkit.com
