SOME of the brightest engineers at the Dyson headquarters in Malmesbury were recently set the challenge of reinventing the Christmas tree.

The company tests its staff out every year with a series of engineering challenge and leading up to Christmas this year they were asked to develop a truly unique tree for the festive season.

With just four weeks to complete their trees, the three teams used their expertise in software programming, laser cutting and electronics to engineer three unconventional trees.

The competition was judged by concepts director, Steve Courtney, and the trophy was awarded to the Infinitree team, who used strategically placed mirrors to create the effect of an infinite tree.

Decorated with cyclones taken from Dyson cord-free vacuum cleaners, and baubles crafted from Dyson Supersonic hair dryers, the tree was lit up with more than 1,500 LEDs.

The LEDs can be remotely controlled to display different effects including a simulation of snow falling from the top, with a flash for every time a snowflake lands on the floor.

Matthew Seymour, an electronics hardware engineer at Dyson from the winning team, said: “The biggest challenge when building Infinitree was to ensure that the two halves of the tree synchronised in terms of timing and lighting patterns.

“We had to write some tricky coding, which acted as signalling lines between each side.”

Harriet Lewis, a finance graduate at Dyson, also on the Infinitree team, said; “We wanted to create something that embodied the Dyson culture, and our forward thinking approach.

“Through our use of LEDs and mirrors, we believe we have managed to turn the traditional Christmas tree on its head.”

The runners-up in the competition included the Twistmastree and the Snow Globe.

The Twistmastree was inspired by inner-workings and was built from more than 54 gears and cogs.

The tree uses these interlinking cogs and gears to power a ‘countdown to Christmas’ clock at the top.

The Snow Globe sits inside a Buckminster Fuller inspired geodesic dome, built entirely from Dyson cord-free vacuum cleaner wands.

Inside the dome is the tree, which is formed out of clear plastic cyclones and has a continuous airflow of snow falling from the top of the tree.