Creative ideas for a portable cooktop and production line-style clothes washing have won two UNSW industrial design students semi-finalist places in an international competition.

Alfred Ching and Saba Zare, both fourth-year industrial design students in UNSW Built Environment, are among 25 designers from 14 countries selected as semi-finalists in the Electrolux Design Lab 2011 competition.

Alfred has designed the Honeycomb modular induction tile cooking system concept - a system of hexagonal heating plates which can be used individually or together as a cooktop. The system is conceived to be portable and stackable.

"I live by myself and use a two-hob cooker and thought it would be useful to have a system which is portable but also scalable for when people move to a larger house," Alfred said.

Saba has been selected for his Mywash washing machine system. The Mywash - designed for communal or home use - has plastic drums which are used as clothes baskets, then can be set to automatically load into a washing machine/dryer. The baskets can be assigned to have different wash settings, with users notified by SMS or email alert when processes are starting and finishing.

"There is automation in industrial processes to increase efficiency, so I thought it makes sense to have automation in domestic processes to make them more efficient," Saba said.

Eight finalists will be announced in July and will be invited to present their concept to a jury in London. The first prize is a six-month paid internship with Electrolux and 5,000 euros, with second and third prizes of 3,000 and 2,000 euros respectively.

Media Contact: Peter Trute, UNSW Media Office | 02 9385 1933 | p.trute@unsw.edu.au