Design challenge

Project name: Design challenge
Project duration: A month
Agenda: To design products and systems based on different themes through the month

Content:
Week 1 - Designing for future emergency services
Week 2 - Designing Products based out of biomimicry
Week 3 - Designing Products based on current day problems
Week 4 - Designing systems for management of increasing cloth dump

Overview:
Design challenge is a month long project where I pushed myself to THINK. Thoughout the week I would take inspiration from my surrounding, consume theme relevant content and design products and systems later in that week.

Motivation behind doing this project:
A way to deal with brain-block.

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Week 1 - Designing for future emergency services

I tried to be at victim’s position and imagined all kinds of things that could go wrong from them getting caught in an incident to them reaching the hospital. Knowing what the pain points could be, I attempted at designing a futuristic system for the situation.

Inspiration Board from the movie Oblivion

FFG - FIRE FIGHTER GLASSES
Problem statement:
Fire fighters don’t get a clear vision of the contact site leading to them having to risk their lives while trying to save others.

Problem solution:
FFG will help the fire fighter to get a complete architectural plan scan of the space they are entering into.

The glasses can (using Ultrasonic range finder)
• spot volatile spaces,
• fragile slabs and objects and notify them as danger

The glasses can (using Infrared imaging)

• Spot humans stuck under debris or other inaccessible places.
• Humans being warm blooded animals, in a regular environment could be detected by scanning warm spots in given space. In the case of fire sites, everything around would be warmer/hotter than the human body. Therefore the glasses will have to be reversed mechanised and detect colder spots are humans.

PARAMEDIC BOT
The Bot will assist the paramedic in all things information. For something as common and silly as ambulance getting stuck in traffic and not able to reach victim, the bot will fly to the location checking and start scanning the victim. It’ll guide the humans around as to what are the actions they can take up until the paramedic team reaches.

• The bot will act as a holographic X-ray and spot exact damage point(s).
• It’ll also give real time heart beat and all the other emergency vital details.
• It will go through the victim’s medical history and help them paramedics get the necessary done as fast as possible.

LIFE POD
When the ambulance reaches on the accident site, hibernation cells can be used to pause their lives in real time and stop from further damage. Basic medication can be given via the hibernation cell. Refer Hibernation cell for an elaborate description.

Week 2 - Designing Products based out of biomimicry

Inspiration Board

HAPPY PATCH
Have you ever gotten irritated with the deodorant that you quite literally bathed with and still have to smell your stink? While sweating is natural and good for your body, the smell comes as an unnecessary package. What if you had just a tiny patch on you, saving you from the stink all at once?
That is what Happy Patch will do for you.

These patches will release a scent every time you sweat.
No more stinking in the gym, during long office hours, or even while sharing an intimate moment with someone special! Alternately you can also rub a finger on the patch to activate and release scent.

Research shows that perfumes/scents tend to enhance our moods and relieve our stress at times. Timed patches will release a light trail of smell every few hours to give your body some dopamine and serotonin rush. These patches be can further developed for aroma therapy.

DE-STINK
How many times have you taken your foot off the shoe and instantly felt the need to curb the smell that blasts out of it? Or someone around you with stinky shoes and socks? De-stink, inspired from the direction of hair on animal body, is an instant solution to this. The patch can be stuck on the inside of the shoe. Every time you take your foot out of the shoes, the micro structure on the patch opens and releases a mild scent. The structure then gets back to its original direction (close). While you wear your shoes, the structure remains unhindered i.e. closed.

BUNDLED UP
Long distance relationships suck? Yeh. While we can’t change the situation, we sure can try making you feel a little better. Bundled-up is a smart blanket made in a set of two. On activation, if one blanket is snuggled tight its sensation can be felt in the other blanket. Distance won’t change a thing for these blanket. It will have other features like vibration and heat sensitivity. The sensors are placed in a grid format for easy mapping of the body. The blankets can be remotely controlled with an app. When required, the blankets can be disconnected and used as normal heat giving covers.

NURSING BIRDS
Birds have a hard time finding food in winters, specifically in the snow cladded regions of the world. This bird feeder will hold a birdseed cake of any dimension. In addition to that it has a water tub in the centre. During the summers, when the humidity increases, the structures beings to collect its own water. This also invites little creatures that cannot reach the water bowl at the top. In this way, all the water needs are fulfilled by ‘Nursing Birds’ without being depend on refills. Birdseed cakes can stay in a good condition for up to 6 months making it a low maintenance set-up.

WASH-IT-UP
Wash-it-up is multifunction kitchen box. It is inspired from the self-cleaning surface of the lotus leaf. Store in anything, greasy to liquid-like to absolute dry to airtight, it’ll be your one stop solution for every storage utensil for the kitchen. Because of its surface, it’ll microwave friendly and could easily be deep freezed. You could carry it around like a tiffin box and change the no. of compartments as required. The box will be collapsible, giving the user 3 different lengths. It would come with a quirky lotus leaf structure inspired ice cube mould, for you will always have more than ordinary ice cubes to serve.

Week 3 - Designing Products based on current day problems

Back Story: Looking back at the stories from the Stone Age, women used all sorts of fibres in their days of menstruation. They infused these fibres with herbs that reduce pain. Tied some around the neck so they could smell in all day long. Before sanitary napkins were introduced to the world, cloth staple strips came to the rescue. Today we have tons of bio-degradable alternatives to the one time use sanitary napkins. Even then for a country like ours, to make sanitary napkin affordable we are compelled to use one time use sanitary napkins.

Problem statement: These napkins have no distinct way stated in the norms for this hazardous waste disposal and since no government body is solely in-charge of its disposal, all of them cooks together burn the broth.

Story & information board

In waste management, segregation is a big task. The model I am suggesting below could be replicated across waste platforms.
Tagging all the sanitary waste with certain symbol sticker that comes with it making it easier to identify the waste and thereby reaching the incinerators.

Week 4 - Designing systems for management of increasing cloth dump

Problem statement:
Fast fashion and unsustainable shopping habit leading to an excess burden on earth. Finding ways to tackle existing waste and ideating for sustainable fabric usage without dismissing the fast fashion factor.

Vegan fashion
Today we are growing into a world of conscious apparel made from cork, plastic waste and things that otherwise go to waste. When we recycle plastic, we are only extending its life before it again ends up into The Landfills. While that helps in its waste, what if we produce clothing that is infused with fertilizers and on meeting the soil under certain conditions, it will not only decompose in the soil but will also become a good manure for agriculture/house plants.

I am suggesting we start making yarns for clothing from the perspective of it meeting soil at some point. Getting the price range of this clothing to a fast fashion price tag, we can make sure we are grabbing consumers belonging to the fast fashion community.

Today we need clothing that gets back to soil for not today but in the near future there will come a saturation point in sustainable and upcycled clothing. We need more of circular clothing systems then upcycled and recycled.

The clothing can be locally manufactured. For instance, we divide the brand in 4 major soil types. Rajasthan, Arizona, and places as such have ample desert space and the soil there will not have properties of soil in evergreen forest. The clothing in these region firstly would be made from cactus fibre that is ample. Secondly, they’ll be infused will minerals that the desert soil requires, so as to when decomposed, the clothing doesn’t affect natural composition of the soil in that land.

While we can always make people aware of the fast fashion that they are falling for and its hazardous effects on the environment, we have to accept that some people WILL NOT stop making such clothes and their blind lovers will not stop buying from them.

I tried ideating for the existing cloth dump and the ones that will pill-up in the coming years.

At 50 °C using low concentrations of acids and bases, the interfiber structures of woven cotton were successfully degraded when treated with the following sequence of chemical treatment: citric acid, urea, sodium hydroxide, ammonium hydroxide, and sodium nitrate.

This sachet will come with a decomposing powder based on the fabric type which when added in the fabric will start its decomposing process. These can be done in the home pits directly and rich manure would be generated after a certain amount of time. Making this process easy, cheap and fast will allow a lot of people from different backgrounds to get involved. Making it cheaper will also make people segregate their waste into natural fibres and non-fibres.