DAEJEON, South Korea (Dec. 12, 2016) — Hankook Tire Co. Ltd. honored the concept tire designs of four University of Cincinnati students during its Design Innovation program, held Dec. 8 at the company's newly christened research and design center in Daejeon.
The program, intended to celebrate creative solutions to real-world problems, challenged the students to design tire systems for self-driving and connected vehicles that could become reality in future mega cities. The winning designs focused on challenges posed by ride-sharing and driverless vehicles.
The winners were:
- Cameron Bresn, who designed a concept tire to introduce lateral movement with maximized cornering grip;
- Hayden Lapiska, who developed a concept tire using multiple tread sections that can expand and contract to handle different urban environments;
- Ian McGillivray, who designed a space-saving personal transit system with varied tire specs that is built into the ground to provide on-call transportation; and
- John Piper, who designed a system of autonomous and self-driving tires to function as an in-wheel drivetrain responsible for steering, braking and handling.
Hankook will create mock-ups of each winning design along with 3-D animation detailing the vision of each submission.
Each of the winners also had the chance to visit the Technodome, Hankook's new R&D center, where they exhibited their work, participated in design lectures, met with Hankook Tire's R&D staff and toured some of Seoul's top design destinations.
"The Design Insight Forum at the Hankook Technodome is a meaningful opportunity to experience the fine works of young designers developing future tire innovations at our new and state-of-the art R&D center," Seung Hwa Suh, vice chairman and CEO of Hankook Tire, said in a news release.
"Hankook Tire expects to further create synergy with the future leaders of industrial design in collaboration with Hankook Tire's technological leadership through the Design Insight Forum."
Since its inception in 2012, the Design Innovation program has partnered with some of the world's leading collegiate design programs and the designs it inspired have received patents and have been lauded by competitions including IDEA, IF awards and Red Dot Design Awards.