Philips Floorcare
New ways to pick up dirt from hard floors, and a stick vacuum that turns into a lamp.
- Year
- 2017
- Role
- R&D apprentice · design engineer
- Client
- Philips Floorcare, Drachten
- Outcome
- 2 granted European patents, also granted in the US and China
- 2
- granted European patents
- +6
- countries where they were also granted
During my apprenticeship in the Function Development department of Philips Floorcare in Drachten, my brief was a new kind of quick floor-cleaning device. Along the way, I found and developed new working principles for picking up coarse dirt from hard floors.
Two patents
That work became intellectual property. Supervised by Bas de Wit, in the department led by Ted Pajak, I co-invented two patents, both granted: one for a vacuum cleaner utensil (EP3651628B1) and one for a surface cleaning device (EP3691505B1). They were also granted in the US (US10980384B2), China, Japan, Korea, Russia and Ukraine. I’m also named on a Chinese utility model for a handheld vacuum cleaner (CN206612744U).
C-FLEX (TU Delft, for Philips)
At TU Delft, in the course Advanced Embodiment Design, Philips also gave our student design team a brief: a bagless, minimal stick vacuum. Our answer, C-FLEX, is built around symbiosis. When it’s stored, it doubles as a lamp, so it can stay in the living room and you just grab it and go. We engineered it into a working prototype.
I was responsible for user research, project management, and concept and physical development. The working prototype wouldn’t exist without Fermin Espin Franco, Heidi Lee, Mathijs ter Kuile, Ruben Baldewsing and Melle Grössl.
