Nido

A modular concept for passenger seats, independent of the mode of transport and meant for increasingly autonomous journeys, plus a target group, a business model and a cost plan. That's the whole brief. Hand-in: Sunday at nine, for all sixteen teams at once. The part in a car that gets removed, cleaned and handed on most often, and whose foam is spent after a few years. That became Nido, whose printed lattice actively damps the exact frequency that causes motion sickness, something foam never does. Three layers: washable cover, printed lattice core, ribbed structural shell. The core is a gyroid, which supports itself in any orientation and prints without support structure, while cell size tunes compliance locally. Monomaterial, fully recyclable. There was no time in 48 hours for a rig to measure energy absorption, so the selection rests on published values rather than our own tests. Two specimens were printed, 10 x 10 cm and 5 x 5 cm, because nobody could say up front how much print time the weekend would leave us. Which cell size actually protects best stayed an open question.

Printed in PLA: the seat with its lattice core visible, beside the specimen that shows the cell size. Julian M., 40, high-income household, not looking for generic foam. He wants uncompromising safety and zero motion sickness for his child, and he'll happily pay above €600 for something that reads as medical-grade. 5.6 Bn USD total market, 380 M USD in the premium segment above €300, an 11.1 M € target by Year 5. The segment is growing 15% a year; Europe alone holds 34% of it. Phase 2: a seat fitted to each child's biometrics, captured by phone through photogrammetry and processed locally. Phase 3: licensing the dual-layer gyroid architecture to Tier-1 suppliers, well beyond the child seat.

Seven minutes of pitch, three of questions before the jury, then first place as team TecHMinds against 15 others. The result wasn't the point. The pace was: concept, manufacturing route and cost plan in 48 hours.