Soon, a virtual helmet that has dinner ready as soon as you reach home

MELBOURNE - Have you ever thought about a helmet that orders dinner just by thinking? Well, an Aussie student has and his design has even made it to the final eight of the Electrolux’s annual Design Lab competition that asks students to imagine what urban life will be like in the future.

Monash University student Daniel Dobrogorsky sent his design for the device to the competition where participants submit designs for innovative and consumer-minded gadgets that fit the futuristic, space-restricted lifestyle.

It is predicted that 74 percent of the population will live in an urban environment by 2050.

Some entries in this year’s competition incorporate technology already implemented in households, such as magnetic induction heating.

Others -such as the Bio Robot Refrigerator, which uses a non-sticky, morphing, cold gel to suspend and store food - may take a little longer before they reach your nearest supermarket.

Dobrogorsky’s virtual reality helmet transmits an imagined meal to robot chefs in a centralised kitchen who then prepare and deliver the meal.

Called the ‘Kitchen Hideaway’, the device solves the problem of space constraints in future dwellings by taking away the kitchen.

It allows the user to enjoy the cooking experience and all the trials that go with it, and perhaps most importantly, avoid any washing up.

“The idea of a seamless virtual kitchen means that the sights, tastes, smells, sounds and textures are identical to those we feel in the physical world,” news.com.au quoted him as saying.

However, the gadget won’t do everything for you.

“If you were to virtually make a mistake in your recipe, yes it would appear in your final delivered meal,” he said.

“The robotic chefs are an automated physical kitchen - their job would simply be to replicate whatever you have created within your own virtual kitchen.

“Having said that though, once you nail your own personal recipe and it’s perfect, you can save those virtual instructions,” he added.

Dobrogorsky said the key to success in the competition was to target dual areas of lateral, radical thinking and clever design.

The Kitchen Hideaway was inspired by futurist predictions about compact urban living and our already “augmented reality”.

His design is one of eight finalists in this year’s competition and he’s been invited to the UK where his design will be judged by a panel of top industry designers.

The winner is given a six-month paid internship at an Electrolux global design centre and 5000 euros. (ANI)