Four years and over R500 000 later, what started out as a way of introducing Industrial Design students to industry has become a viable business model.
The R5K project tasks students with earning at least R5 000 by selling industrially designed products to a South African market.
In some cases groups have earned R140 000 with a single product and many designs continue to sell long after students have graduated.
The ingenious idea was the brainchild of Informatics and Design staff members Johan van Niekerk, Mugendi M’Rithaa and Bart Verveckken.
Previous popular designs was the Well Hung hook which allows you to hang a bag of groceries from a car seat headrest and Spoked, an adjustable cork bicycle handgrip.
This year students are once again thinking outside of the box with designs like a repurposed SAB keg braai, a food dehydrator and a pair of braai tongs (with a twist).
Production on prototypes start soon and the products will go on sale later this year.
The R5K project also caught the eye of the World Design Capital organisers and is a recognized project on their calendar of events helping to give greater attention to all the excellent similar projects being produced by the institution.
Visit www.imaginethat.org.za for more information on all CPUT’s WDC projects.
Written by Lauren Kansley
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Liaises with the media and writes press releases about interesting developments at CPUT.