This year, the University of Waterloo team behind Voltera set about developing a way to prototype printed circuit boards in a timely and low cost way, turning to 3D printing for inspiration. “Their solution makes prototyping electronics easier and more accessible-particularly to students and small businesses”, said Dyson.
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The Voltera pitch couldn’t really be simpler: “If you need a custom circuit board, just press print”.
The end result – the Voltera V-One printer – was named one of the top 10 innovations for 2015 by Popular Science.
Fed up with inefficiency in designing circuit boards, the team spent two years working on the electrical properties of conductive nano-silver ink, a system to dispense it, and software to control it, leading to the creation of the startup’s printer. “But it also has the potential to inspire many more budding engineers – something I am very passionate about indeed”.
A graduate of the University of Limerick has scooped a €7,000 runner-up prize in the global James Dyson award for his invention.
Shipping of the first batch of the V-One should have kicked off about now, although the second batch has slipped from its target date of January 2016 thanks to supply chain issues.
Voltera was founded by Alroy Almeida, Katarina Ilic, James Pickard and Jesús Zozaya (pictured), graduates in mechatronics and nanotechnology, and is now based in the Velocity Foundry in Kitchener, Canada and at HAXLR8R, a start-up accelerator focused on hardware companies in Shenzhen, China.
Jesus Zozaya, a co-founder of the project, commented: “We’re at a critical point with Voltera”.
“The team behind Voltera are the latest in a growing line of successful innovators to emerge from this University’s vibrant entrepreneurial environment”, said Feridun Hamdullahpur, president and vice-chancellor of Waterloo. “The $45,000 we’ve been awarded as winners of the James Dyson Award will help us to ramp up production and enhance testing”.
Earlier this year he won €2,000 for winning the Irish leg of the competition.
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There’s cause for celebration in Limerick today as University of Limerick (UL) graduate Cathal Redmond has finished as the joint runner-up in the James Dyson Awards with his underwater breathing system, Express Dive. “We took that as a challenge”.
