A bouncing ball that doubles as a blender and a smart shoe that controls a robot vacuum could soon be seen in the average home.
The high-tech housework gadgets are finalists in the 2011 Electrolux Design Lab competition, with prototypes going on display at John Lewis later this month.
For the office-bound worker, there's even a mini microwave that you can slip into a desk drawer, along with a desktop bagel toaster.
The contest asked design students from around the world to design gadgets around the theme "intelligent mobility".
The bouncing blender was designed by Roseanne de Bruin of the Massey University School of Design in New Zealand. She said she got the idea while sitting on a park bench watching a child bouncing a basketball. "His eyes lit up as he bounced the ball to his father," she said.
"I thought: 'Wouldn't it be cool if there was a way to get children to be more enthusiastic about healthy eating, and even better if this idea also encouraged the kids to help their parents with preparing food." That's when it hit me. A blender in a bouncy ball."
De Bruin's design, called a Smoobo, could be made from recycled plastic for the inside case with rubber outside. The ball contains a plastic casing filled with selected ingredients such as fruit, yoghurt and juice. The user bounces it to activate kinetic energy batteries that in turn make rotor blades inside the ball spin to blend the ingredients into a smoothie. The robot vacuum cleaner uses a small clip attached to shoes or slippers to direct itself towards stains or dropped food at the tap of a foot.
