Canadian students take Dyson prize

The Voltera V-One enables circuit boards to be prototyped in minutes, significantly reducing fabrication time in comparison with traditional methods. It uses conductive nano-silver ink dispensed by a compact electromechanical system, and a software algorithm to control it precisely.

Created originally as part of a 2013 design project, Voltera is the brainchild of Alroy Almeida, Katarina Ilic, James Pickard, and Jesús Zozaya. After graduating that same year, the team moved Voltera into a startup incubator run by the University of Waterloo. It saw off competition from a record 710 entries across 20 different countries to win the 2015 Dyson prize, with its designers taking $45,000, and the university’s engineering faculty awarded $7,500.

“The Voltera V-One printer pushes the boundaries of innovation,” said Pearl Sullivan, dean of Waterloo Engineering. “They took a very complex problem and came up with an elegant solution that would change customised circuit printing forever. The future of technology innovation in Canada lies within brilliant teams like Voltera.”