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Seoul, Korea, October 30, 2023 – Model Solution, a one-stop hardware (H/W) platform company and a subsidiary of Hankook & Company Group (formerly Hankook Tire Group), held an award ceremony of its Model One Award (MOA), an industry and academic cooperation project carried out alongside students of Hongik University’s Department of Industrial Design.

The MOA project is run by Model Solution and aims to support the development of creative and innovative design concepts conceived by college students. Focusing on those majoring in subjects related to state-of-the-art industrial design at home and abroad, MOA helps turn new ideas into “Hi-Fidelity Prototype”. The project has been sponsoring industrial design students at leading universities in the United States and Korea since it began in 2016 as part of Model Solution’s social contribution efforts.

MOA provides free support to students as they implement their design ideas into prototypes that meet the high completion standards of commercial products. The program also helps students acquire field experience as they partake in different aspects of the production process.

This year, MOA took place under the theme of developing devices that could, in the future, be utilized in space. From among all the concepts entered into the project, a modular robot “NOVA” and a companion robot “LAIKA” received special honors for their uniqueness and potential.

NOVA, the first of the award-winning concepts, is a modular robot designed to assist humans living in space-based environments. In these contexts, NOVA would act as a service robot that can be used for different functions in different areas, helping its users as they move freely in and out of space facilities and bases. Beyond this, leveraging a driving robot platform developed by Model Solution, the NOVA prototype was developed to be fully drivable.

The second winning entry, “LAIKA,’ is also a robot prototype. Built to accompany humans in space and support their lives there, LAIKA monitors users’ health and provides companionship, designed to be friendlier and more personable in appearance than the more dominant perception of robots as mechanical and four-legged.

Through projects like MOA, Model Solution plans to continue to seek out and foster the future global talents who will lead tomorrow’s industrial design innovations.