Eleanor’s pollution fighting backpack wins IET competition
10 Feb 2023
Huddersfield twelve-year-old Eleanor Wood’s pollution filtering backpack has won her the Institution of Engineering & Technology’s (IET) national ‘Backpack to the Future’ competition.
Her air filtered design has been hailed as an initiative to help the estimated 8 million asthma sufferers in the UK. It features a built-in air filter and fans, powered sustainably by solar panels and a dynamo.
Said Eleanor: “I thought of my backpack to help clean the air because some of my family and friends have asthma and hay fever and it could help them. I’m very happy the judges chose my entry as the winner.”
The judging panel included IET Fellow Professor Danielle George MBE, Bav Samani CEO of HYPE which is marketing the backpack, IET’s 2021 Young Woman Engineer of the Year Dr Ciara McGrath and Mira Nameth, founder of sustainable fashion brand Biophilica.
Runner up places were awarded to The Travel Bag by Maria Hughes, aged 12 from London, which featured handy gadgets to make holidays a breeze, and the Candy Creator by Emelia Fry, aged 11 from Essex, which featured a candy floss maker powered by a piezoelectric disc.
Professor George commented: “There’s so much potential for engineering to help tackle the societal and planetary problems that we face, and Eleanor has demonstrated exactly that with her Breathe Better Backpack.”
Eleanor’s winning design will be displayed in HYPE.’s London Flagship Store
