Claudia's ides

Every object has a story if you know how to read it.

Before watching this video, I believed that the product should has their own fantastic and amazing features and this is the reason why they are good.But it is not isn't it?such as apple.everything seems not be designed.Thinking back of my childhood, for gardening champion , i thought that some of the competitors are really lucky to get those perfect plants from somewhere.How naive i was.

Talking about the nature of the product,On the one side,I would not want to stop my step for the artificial stuffs which looks lifeless and not attractive to me at all.On the other side, I am eager for designing something amazing that it is unique and artificial.yes,even me would not buy those artificial products how can i expect other consumers to buy them.

In addition,My dad told me that when you read a book and you need to research more at first and at the end find out the key point.I think i just understand the first part of this sentence. Everything is hard when you do the design.In the beginning,you need to do a lots of research.But i never think about the last part of this sentence how to find the key of your design.I thought that we design a products we add what it needs.It is pretty enough though.How come we look at what we design saying ok i don't want this part ,take it off no matter how many effort i put on this part.I tried to add everything which i think it is worth to the product.And i just can not delete even single part of them.of course, i would not think about delete then.This might make me feel better but might not to products.It needs courage that designer are willing to delete part of their efforts. no matter how many days they are designed for this single part.However,this might be the difference between the well-known designers and the unknown designer..

And the most interesting things in this video is ,every designer has a remarkable memory about the specific product.Did i have one?Not really.I did not care about the products before and quite satisfied what the products are.I was happy with everything in my life even they are so normal.It is ok to be a normal person but not to be a designer.To be a designer, you need pay more attention about lacking system,the problem exist and analyse people which could be also important.Once you understand the problem or opportunity is, you can find a good way to solve this problem.

When i was in teenage, I heard a discussion bewteen my parents of whether they are going to buy an electronical car or not.Mum refused to buy it because: "it is a new technology and you will not know if it is dependable" .From that period of time, I just insist to believe that it was the first time that electronical cars were faced to the public.But obviously it is not the truth which we heard from the video.

More, It is really impressive that electrical car exsisted in the different period of times.On the one side, It must have enough reasons of why the electronic car is been designed.Otherwise,there were no market and designers were not even think about to design it.To some extent, It indicates the significance of the electric car itself,.On the other side,the death of electronic car would happened by reasons.If we could not find theses certain reasons out of which caused the failure.Then,It will not be successful even we design a new electronic car again.

After watching this documentory,I keep thinking about "who killed the electric car".YES,the car company,oil company,consumer,government etc might be guilty,Car company care more about what they earned rather than shoulder the responsiblity of making a better environment.Oil companys are afraid of the development of the electric car for taking off their market share away.Instead of doing nothing,they decided to kill this protencial competitor.

But how about the reason why they do it?

Firstly, It is the profit of which everyone expect to gain after buying,selling,or using the product(the electric car).For electric car,it is a kind of big challenge compared with petrol cars.Because for designing an electric car, you need to design a totally new supporting system to it such as the recharge station in the public and how cars can fixed when it is brocken.I think that the car company they might have less preparation about how this product cycle works and what the problem they might have.

Secondly,it is the energy-based society.Nowadays,the whole society relys on the nature-resources so much.All most every family have their own cars.Of course, the car need petrol to be operated.Furthermore,we become more vulnerable facing to these nature-resources providers.Taking this electronic car as an example.The electric broke this kind of game rule.Even a lots of people support,the rules would not be changed by this single product.So I am thinking if every designer get involved about this kind of environment-friendly design,Then in the end,We will not need this kind of rules anymore.Further,It might encourage people to do design more sustainable products.

Rationale

BACKGROUND : sishuan(China) earthquake,2008

On the 12th of May in 2008, Sichuan suffered from the 8 richer scale earthquake, which leads to more than 100 thousand people to death. This disaster occurred in the local time 2.28pm and the center is in Wen-chuan, a small town in Sichuan Province. In the statement of the State Council Information Office (September, 2008), the total death toll is 69,227 people and the total missing is over 18,000. Besides, numerous were hospitalized from injury.



Fatalities reported by the Chinese News Agency as a function of time after the Wenchuan (M8) earthquakes (squares). The sum of the fatalities and the missing (triangles) have to be considered the total number of fatalities. As can be seen in this chat, the Fatalities reported by the Chinese News Agency Has direct proportion with the time. Therefore , the earlier to provide the rescue the more people will have the chance to be saved.

SOLUTION:

There are few reasons about why to design this combination of trolley and stretcher:

The earthquake ruined the roads. As a result, there is no way for cars to carry the equipment to the quake zone directly. Therefore, even though China has a large amount of rescue teams and military, it still costs time for them to bring the large and heavy equipments to the quake zone by hand. Therefore, this design provides an easy way for carrying the equipments.

After the disaster, the time for rescue is quite urgent. Therefore, this design will to some extend increase the efficiency of the security. It is because that this design will offer multi-function. It will decrease both the time to carry the equipments and time to transfer the wounded.

My solution is a combination of the stretcher and trolley. The structure of stretcher is strong enough. It can hold more than 200kg by weight. Based on this structure, I designed this trolley which can carry more rescue equipments, such as cut-off machine, to the quake zone. Once the victim taking out from the collapse of ruined buildings, they can be transport to the hospital by using the stretcher directly.

In addition, with respect to the size the design, according to the book: BODYSPACE (P258, 2006), the average height of the Chinese in around 1617.5 mm. Therefore, this designed stretcher that has 2000mm long will be suitable for the most people in China. Beside, the width is 550mm. Furthermore, when calculating the height of the handle, this design also base on this data in BODYSPACE. The average elbow height for the Chinese is about 940mm. However, in practice, most of the rescue staffs are male. Therefore, the height of the handle will be increased by 45mm to 985mm. Moreover, the maximum grip diameter, according to the BODYSPACE (p144 ,2006), is between 48mm (women) and 52mm (men). Therefore, in this design, the dimension is made to 50mm. Besides, the designed stretcher has a sight slope from each side of the stretcher to the center. It will help the wounded to prevent extra injury from moving.

With respect to the cushion, it locates on the stretcher surface. When carrying the equipments, the lower part (the longer part) of the cushion will be not unfolded. It will keep touching the vertical one to keep it clean. However, when transferring the wounded, the stretcher will be unfold to make the wounded comfortable. With regards to the joint, it belongs to the push button activation. It will hold about 226.8kg by weight. In addition this technology use 5:1 safety factor, therefore the maximum weight, this joint could stand is 226.8 x 5= 1134kg. Moreover, this joint also includes adjustable racks, foldable handles, adjustable racks….

Additionally, the material used by the designed stretcher is Poly Ethylene. The reason could be attributed to its high tolerance as well as its cheap price. Besides, the method of this manufacture is rotational modeling, which is relatively convenient. Therefore, this material will be affordable to peoples in China.

Nowadays, Electronics turns to be a part of our lives.We become to have more willing to spend increasingly times on them such as to watch TV programs after finishing dinner ,to surf on the Internet before going to sleep.In the other words, our lives become partially relying on these electronics. However, as a consequence of largely depending on electronics, E-waste problem turns to be more and more serious.


E-waste ,mentioned in the video of "The story of Electronics" ,which as a serious of problems is not only coming from the product line but also from the recycling process. In the product line, company owners care about nothing rather than rising fortune as soon as possible. In recycling process, actually, it is not really recycled but to land filled or to send them to the developing country taking the valuable parts then burning it.More, unfortunately, a key feature though the product whole life cycle is toxics.People are adding the toxics when they creating a new product which is using the inappropriate material(not that environment friendly)and manufactory process.


In addition, the updating products reminds me of a movie named “The Onion movie” .In that movie,the producer exaggerates how fast the micro software is updating its market. After the character paying for his merchandise, suddenly, he realize that the next version already comes out. As the development of the new product,repairing the old stuffs comes out as a problem which is worth observing and noticing. Similar as shown in the video, I went to a repair shop for fixing my phone. Compared with buying a new phone, it costs more on repairing it. The reason of high repairing fee I have been told is that the factory is not manufactured this screen any longer. So, I am thinking this as a design opportunity which is related to how to update a new technology and fit to the old stuff.Once considing and designing an individual product in a series, the fit would not be a problem. But I am still wondering if people can accept changing the parts rather than buying a new one especially when they can afford a new one.


Thinking back to my experience, the reason that I insist on repairing the phone even it cost me more is the memory. The meaning of the phone itself is more than single product to me of which it is carrying some unique memories for me. Instead of making a purchase; I choose to repair so that it prevents creating an E-waste at the same time. And If every consumer has the same decision as me, it would be less E-waste in the plant. But how can designers lead users to make this sort of decision? We can design the product which has more personal connection with the user. As long as they start to use the products, this sense of feeling would be more and more strong.

http://lai-eugenius.blogspot.com/2011/03/blog-post.html

No matter what the products are,in the end of their lives,they are going to the same destination:throwing away in trash bins.And after then,some of them are going to be recycled especially as paper,plastic,glass etc.

Before watching this video,there is no reason I can believe that a bunches of products actually come from recycling.I thought that recycled products have less quality.Even knew the process of manufacture,I thought the material made the product is all come from raw material.I am surprised when they say the tissue paper and toliet paper in fact containing parts of recycling paper.

As shown on these videos,recycling process seems like kind of rebirth.Normally,at first, it is collected material by partition of particular material from waste steam.After then,going though different machines,the waste turns to countless pellet or muddy stuff.Next, they shape back into a new product.

In the segments of recycling aluminium, I have been amazed at the energy cost of AL sheet.Compared with making other products, it only required 1/20 of energy!!Of which means the energy could be saved in abundance if manufacture hundreds of million of aluminium sheet product.As a designer, this is an exceptional opportunity.More than saving power,it also saves money for factories with less consumption cost of manufacture if we design with these sheet materials.So I am thinking I might need to pay more attention on the product with sheet material.

Based on what i watched,I am thinking there might have two suggestions of how can designers contribute to the solutions rather than problems.

On the one hand,our design should be really meaningful .As i saw from a design book,it is said the purpose of this subject, industrial design, is to create most efficient solutions for solving problems.Then,I start thinking that as a fabulous design itself,it could be time-saving and energy-saving at the same time when customers spend time on using it.It might can considered as use of saving as well.For instance, the invention of the airplane.By taking plane ,people could save several years to travel around the world. As a result,users can benefit a lot from the great design itself of which they have become more willing to use.

Moreover,on the other hand, making things with less power cost ,less material use is part of our job which means this might be more than responsibility we should shoulder.We need to be more eco-concerned paying more attention on how to protect our plant.I guess we can not expected every customer use a product until its' life end especially they are all facing with the ever-changing fashion every day.What we could do is to design a product with the characteristic of long-life-time, environment-friendly even energy-saving in the process of making as well as recycling.

In addition,I talked with one of my friends who is a second-year environment engneering student .Last year,she went to the Chullora waste and recycling centre which is located on west Sydney.As what she heard, they have two main problems when doing recycle.One is nappy and another one is radio tape.The first one is some of people are thinking that nappy can be recycled no matter used or not.So they throw them into yellow bins and it is awful when people spending hours stand there to take these nappys from tray.The second problem comes from radio tape.The tape itself always get stuck in the waste steam.Unfortunately,I guess we can did less for the first problem.But we might can design some new technique or a machine to pick those tapes before it squashed into a cube for transport.