Over the next few weeks we will be highlighting award-winning projects and ideas from this year's Core77 Design Awards 2013. We will be featuring these projects by category, so stay tuned for your favorite categories of design! For full details on the project, jury commenting and more information about the awards program, go to Core77DesignAwards.com.

• Project Name: Airborn
• Designer: Malin Grummas

AirBorn, child seat for infants in commercial airplanes: Based on research on international regulations and user observations, AirBorn offers a solution to the identified fact that none of the present ways for flying with infants are safe. By placing the infant in safer seating positions that protects the infant from impact with low-tech airbags and secures the infant at impact and during evacuations, the concept offers 3 seating modes that are safe and comfortable for infant and parent. In case of an evacuation on water, the seat works as a life cot.

- How did you learn that you had been recognized by the jury?

The delightful news came to me in the form of a congratulatory email from my former classmate and co-honoree Omer Haciomeroglu.

- What's the latest news or development with your project?

The project has been resting since I started my career at frog design. It would be very exciting to continue the development and extensive testing that a product of this field requires. I would be happy to continue the work if the opportunity presented itself.

- What is one quick anecdote about your project?

During my testing phase I used weighted mannequins to resemble different sized children. I had used round bar steel as weight in my foam core dummies. The airport security sure looked at me funny when they scanned my hand luggage.

- What was an "a-ha" moment from this project?

I started the project with some knowledge of the problems surrounding the activity of flying with small children. I never would have guessed just how bad the situation around safety for infants actually is. Luckily airplanes are a very safe means of transport in comparison, but even hard landings and turbulence could seriously harm an unbelted passenger like infants and small children often are. Not to mention the unlikely but sometimes necessary evacuation of an aircraft.

View the full project here.

Project Name: Elle Designer: Della Tosin Art Center College of Design

Elle is an innovative prosthetic leg and swimwear for single-leg below the knee swimmers. Nowadays, there are barely a training equipment for single-leg swimmers.

- How did you learn that you had been recognized by the jury?

One of my college mates was the first to deliver the good news. He saw my name as a winner at Core77 Design Awards website. I immediately opened the website and I felt really honored. As a student who started designing for school projects, it is really rewarding to know that people would appreciate my work and support my dream to help people through my designs. I am motivated to produce even better projects in the future.

- What's the latest news or development with your project?

I added some color and material explorations. Some people have brought up the idea of producing and manufacturing the product into the market, which is something I'd love to further explore. Unfortunately, I have to put it on hold because of the workload that I currently have.

- What is one quick anecdote about your project?

During the concept provement of four weeks, I drove over 50 miles to meet Rose, the amputee swimmer who is also a potential user. We discussed and tested out the mockups that I made. Despite of the far distance, I always expected the day to come, because Rose is an inspiring person to learn from, and moreover doing mockups in swimming pool was so much fun! We always ended our sessions with several laps together.

- What was an "a-ha" moment from this project?

One of the biggest problem for an amputee to swim is maintaining streamline position because they tend to swim with the hips down. During the process, I studied about bones of the human skeleton. Our body will normally stay afloat when we swim because there is different density in human bones. I wanted to design the prosthetic leg that provides the same buoyancy function that human leg does.

The "a-ha" moment came when I could create that buoyancy through 3D printing technology, that let me print the object within object. Thus, I can control the density level, it allows me to create the buoyancy needed for my prosthetic leg. This serves like a bridge that connects human bone and mechanical bone together and make them functionally similar.

View the full project here.