The team led by Professor Ya-lin Chen from the Department of Innovative Product Design, STUST, with team members including Bing-han Lin, Zong-shiu Yang, Shi-you Chen, Shao-jun Zeng, and Wan-ting Lu, won the 2024 International Design Excellence Awards/IDEA with their work "Portable Refugee Shower System". The Outstanding Industrial Design in the United States, co-organized by the Society of Industrial Designers of America, is one of the largest and most prestigious design awards in the world. There are only a handful of Taiwanese student teams that have won the IDEA Design Award in the United States over the past ten years. The members of the same team shined in this competition with two sets of entries, which undoubtedly proves the international strength of STUST students.

【The work "Portable Refugee Shower System Design" from the Department of Creative Product Design, STUST, was awarded the 2024 International Design Excellence Awards/IDEA. Prof. Ya-lin Chen and the competition team took a group photo at the award ceremony.】

The work that won the silver award this time is "Portable Refugee Shower System." It is an optimized and integrated mobile shower room especially designed for temporary needs such as wars and disasters. It uses mechanical storage to reduce the size, making it convenient for transportation in large quantities. It can be used by multiple people to greatly increase efficiency and improve and optimize its equipment to adapt to different refugee camp terrain environments and strengthen grip. The modular design can replace damaged equipment at any time, making the operation more direct; the barrier-free spaces are design for the disabled people to make them safer and more convenient to use. It is hoped that they can be provided to rescue organizations and taken to local areas to improve the inadequate sanitary conditions in refugee camps.

【Students of the silver award winning team from STUST: Bing-han Lin, Zong-shiu Yang, Shi-you Chen, Shao-jun Zeng, and Wan-ting Lu】

Prof. Ya-lin Chen has guided the student team to win many international competition awards over the years. This year, he also guided the student team to win the Silver Award of the IDEA Outstanding Industrial Design Award again. Zhu-yu Cheng, Chair of the department, said that the biggest contributor to the team of teachers and students' continuous accumulation of winning many international competition awards is the concerted efforts of Prof. Ya-lin Chen and the team members, leading the students to conduct interviews and field verifications in a down-to-earth manner, and working together to overcome difficulties. Only by continuous revision and improvement can the work be put on the world arena to compete with first-class universities and companies and demonstrate world-class standards, standing alongside world-class design teams and winning glory for the country.

【The "Portable Refugee Shower System" team of the Department of Creative Product Design, STUST, won the 2024 US IDEA Silver Award with their designed of portable temporary rescue shower system.】

De-guang Chou, Acting President of STUST, said that STUST has performed well in many design exhibitions at home and abroad in recent years. This award shows that STUST’s teaching achievements have reached world-class standards. It is also an example of the effectiveness of the implementation of the Ministry of Education’s higher education deepening plan. With concrete performance, STUST will continue to shine on the world arena and win glory for Taiwan in the future.