Blackwood Design Awards 2023-2024 - The Winners

18th January 2024

General News Press eTrike

Spoiler Alert - We won our category!

Last week Tim Morgan, Managing Director and Inventor of the Mountain Trike, along with Mountain Trike Production Manager, Seb Luxford, attended the Blackwood Design Awards 2024 at the National Robotarium, located at University Edinburgh Campus.

The annual competition was launched in 2013 by Blackwood Homes and Care, who help people live their lives to the fullest by providing high-quality housing, care and support for disabled people of all ages.

The design awards have grown each year, becoming an international contest which attracts designers, engineers and inventors from all over the globe. The purpose of the Blackwood Design Awards is to discover and champion brilliant concepts, designs and products that have the potential to help people live independently.

Mountain Trike submitted an entry for the eTrike, electric assist, all terrain wheelchair in the Best New Aids, Equipment, or Accessible Technology (already accessible on the market) category. At the end of last year we were delighted to receive confirmation that we had been shortlisted for the award and were invited to attend the judging day and awards ceremony on Thursday 11th January 2024.

The day included a tour of the robot living lab and at 2pm the showcase awards began where all shortlisted entrants presented their entry to the expert panel of judges.

This year, the judging panel had experts, professionals and people with disabilities from across the UK, including:

• Colum Lowe, Director, Design Age Institute, Royal College of Art, London
• Graeme Stewart, Peer Support Advisor, Spinal Injuries Scotland, and;
• Steven, a Blackwood customer at one of their Glasgow services
  

Colum Lowe, expressed his enthusiasm for the innovative ideas presented at the awards, stating,

“It was a delight to see such exciting and innovative ideas presented at the Blackwood Design Awards. The standard of applications was incredibly high, and hopefully, all of them will find their way to market and help transform the lives of their intended audience”.

The winners were announced and we were thrilled to be awarded the winning trophy in our category for the Best New Aid Equipment, or Accessible Technology (on the market).

The judges expressed how impressed they were with the design and innovation of the eTrike, commenting how it demonstrated its capabilities as an off road wheelchair and is truly a product which provides independence and changes the lives of people using the product. They also commended the thoughtfulness that has been given to the end user throughout the design process.

Tim Morgan, Managing Director at Mountain Trike said, "this is another really proud moment for myself, but also for the whole of the Mountain Trike team. It has been great to be part of the Blackwood Design Awards and to be recognised as a winner in the Best New Aid category for the eTrike provides further kudos.

Tim went on to say, "the eTrike is pretty ground breaking in terms of its capabilities as an electric assist all terrain wheelchair - it provides wheelchair users with the freedom and independence to go off road and explore places which previously would be impossible and receiving this awards affirms this. Myself and Seb had a very enjoyable day, meeting some great people and the tour of the Robatarium and AI facility was fascinating too."

Alongside us collecting winning trophies in the other two categories, were:

• InflataAid by Rebecca Lamb for Best New Concept
• BAYU by Angus Bartlett and University of Edinburgh for Best Collaborative Project

Congratulations to everyone who entered.

Time to invest in a bigger trophy shelf!

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