The brief set by Microsoft this year was in the area of learning and education, encouraging design solutions that improve the daily life of a wide variety of users.

That could mean promoting creativity and curiosity in new topics, demonstrating novel ways of providing instruction, or rethinking education systems and tools.

The students from the Innovative Product Design course at the University of Dundee responded to the challenge by developing a Storymaker/Storyteller machine, which enables users to combine pictures and commentary to create stories.

The team consisted of of Natalie Montgomery (20), Lee Murray (19), Neil Dawson (19) and Joanna Montgomery (20).

“The thinking behind the machine was inspired by my grandfather, Donald Aitken, who was a former head of the British School in Tehran,” said Dawson.

“He has a vast library of pictures held on slides, and there are some great stories behind them, so we thought, why not create a machine that makes it easy to tie those pictures and stories together and we came up with the Storymaker/Storyteller device.”

The students have designed and built a working prototype which they will take to the USA this weekend.

“Microsoft’s brief focused on the idea of networked objects, machines which can effectively speak to each other, and ours is aimed to encouraging communication between older people and younger generations, relaying the stories they can pass down,” said Natalie Montgomery.

“This works by using two machines - one to put the stories together and at the other end a receiver which can project them.”

Mr Aitken has worked closely with the students, providing detailed voiceovers linking some of his thousands of slides.

Left to right: Neil Dawson, Joanna Montgomery, Natalie Montgomery and Lee Murray.