Jack Pugh: Cap Snap inventor on winning the James Dyson award and being shortlisted for the global 20

A young New Zealander has created a tool to reduce healthcare worker injuries when opening glass ampoules.  

The Cap Snap is a multi-tool for safe opening of steel caps on glass vials and cracking open ampoules. 

It also helps separate each component for better waste management.  

Jack Pugh won the national James Dyson Award for the invention and has been shortlisted in the global top 20.  

Pugh told Mike Hosking the hope is to get it as mechanically simple as possible so it's cheaper and easier to make.  

He says if it takes out the top spot in the award, Dyson would inject money into the project in the hope it'll assist the commercialisation process. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We got this year's dice and winner for New Zealand,
Jack Puw behind a medical multi tool called cap Snap,
aims to protect healthcare workers from injury medical waste. He's
taken out the New Zealand version of the James Diceon Award.
He's been named as a finalist in the Global Top twenty,
which is super exciting. Jack, Morning, morning, Mike. Are you
an inventor? Is that what you do or not? Really? Ah? What?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
In a definition of the sense, you could say, what's.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
That I should have? I should I've done this all wrong?
What's it look like to start with? Giving or on radio?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Ah? So cap snap very simply, you can imagine it
as a cross between a bottle and a craft knife,
right if you're trying to visualize what it looks like.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
And what are you trying to do with a vial?
Are you trying to stop it being broken or are
you stopping me getting cut?

Speaker 2 (00:47):
So the vials that have to be snapped in half
in order to get the medicationing out, you have to
break those open. There's no avoiding vamp. But this tool
hopes to help do that without cutting yourself in the process.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
Okay, And if I need to get a cap off something.
That tool does the same thing as well. So it's
a two in one.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah, it's a two for one works just like a
bottle of no It scept that can adjust to different
sizes because the medical crimpsile vials come across and a
range of sizes from Betty Betty too pretty big.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Is it constructively or industrially complex?

Speaker 2 (01:21):
No, So the hope is to get it as easy
and mechanically simple as possible. That way, it's cheaper and
easier to make.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Wow. And does it work every time?

Speaker 2 (01:30):
It's a fool proof, so it's not completely full proof,
but we're trying to work to get the fails is
down as much as possible with those caps. But the
vile side of things is pretty pretty consistent.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
And how did you go from the eye Because I
get the idea, you think, right, I need something to
be able to solve this problem. I get that part.
How difficult was it to one design and to get
somebody to make it well?

Speaker 2 (01:56):
The design process, you know, there was an ups and downs,
But ultimately working through the steps with the clinicians who
are having the problem, where would it come to something
with not too much trouble in the end.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
If you win this, do you get to monetize it
and the ticket or you don't know, or if you
don't care, or you do it now?

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Rich the James Dyson A would they if I were
to take out sort of the top spot, they would
put forward a big amount of money to sort of
inject into the project in the hope that it would
assist with the commercialization process.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
That's fantastic. You got a dice in vacuum.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
I don't split apart my budget at the moment.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
We'll see when you win the big prize, you can
get yourself a dice in vacuum and you can put
this out on your dream of commercializing in that.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
Sense, I would really like to get it into Clension's
hands so it can actually help them actually solve the problem.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Fantastic.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
I think that'd be great.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah, good on you. Jack will go well with it,
Jack Pugh. I hate to talk to somebody who's that
bright who doesn't have a dice in vacuum. Dison, give
them a vacuum for God's sake. How do you get
to be a finalist in the Dyson contest and you
haven't got a Vacuum.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
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