Exhibition bowled over by students’ Lovely Lav

THE Class of ’03 at the University of Limerick is likely to be flush with commercial success as a result of designing a range of business products that include a revolutionary portable toilet.

Ten new business projects, representing the collective brains of 37 students from the colleges of business and engineering at UL, were put on display yesterday as part of the annual Student Enterprise Ideas Exhibition.

Among the novel products on show was the Lovely Lav, whose creators claim is a revolutionary self-cleaning, portable toilet system that combines technology from aircraft toilets and car washes.

Another invention is the Spinbin, designed to do away with the problem swimmers have with storing wet garments.

Its manufacturers, Spin Solutions hope the Spinbin a wall-mounted unit that contains a spinning department to dry out clothes will be sold to leisure centres and swimming pools.

However, the overall first prize of 600 went to students Tom Zamboglou, Alan Treacy, Neil McGourty and Garreth Sheehan, who developed a safety device for electric saws.

A group who designed a rubbish compactor called the Spacesaver won a prize for Most Commercially Viable Product.

Other business ideas with commercial potential are an innovative joint-making jig for woodwork students and a specially adapted "Barrel Boy" for transporting beer kegs.

The Student Enterprise Ideas Exhibition aims to foster an entrepreneurial spirit among students at the university.

"The exhibition is used to alert students to the opportunities and supports which exists to pursue and develop business ideas as well as inspire an interest in enterprise creation as a career choice," said UL lecturer Anne Flynn.

She said several groups had already established contacts with firms with a view to developing their ideas on a long-term commercial basis.