Field Summary

Through doing a work placement in Ysgol Gyfun Cwm Rhymni teaching in the DT department and taking on another field subject “the sustainable artisan” I feel like I have learned a lot during the field term. I have learned many things about myself and learned many skills such as being able to discuss with students, how to be productive in a class and I have learned skills such as steam bending, and laminate bending in the sustainable artisan subject.

During my time at a secondary school I took on many tasks. These involved teaching a year 7 class and discussing projects with A Level students. I feel I contributed greatly to the school in the 4 week period I was there as I helped move the students forward in a positive direction. Whilst I was teaching the year 7 class, I gained confidence in myself and also I gained more knowledge about the Design and Technology subject which then I could go onto to sharing my knowledge to GCSE students in their upcoming exams.

Whilst I was taking part in the sustainable artisan subject. Firstly we had a great productive trip to a local council maintained Forrest in the Caerphilly County. We had a tour around the forest and had the chance to learn about the different types or trees and also learnt about the meaning of green wood; this was important for the upcoming project.

The project we were given was to design and make some sort of wall mounted storgage. I created a brief for myself to design a create a wall mounted plant display through using steam bending. During the design process after I came up with my final idea it was time to do some modelling and development. Through the shape of my design it was important for me to get it correct as different types of wood thickness would have an impact on the success of the steam bending. It took 7-10 times of testing to get a good result that I was happy with.

 

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Through all the testing I came to a final good result which I then took forward to finishing my project.

 

And this was my final outcome

Field 5: Work Placement (profiad gwaith)

Wythnos cyntaf, yn yr adran DT yn Ysgol Gyfun Cwm Rhymni.

Ar ddechrau yr wythnos, roedd blwyddyn 10 y ddosbarth cyntaf mi oeddwn i yn helpu gyda. Prosiect TGAU blwyddyn 11 yw i greu mwyheuydd swn. Roeddwn i’n helpu gyda ddatblygu syniadau nhw a cael nhw i nodi lawr amrywiaeth ffyrdd o sut i greu eu gynnyrch nhw.

Tryw’r wythnos, oeddwn i’n helps ddysgu blwyddyn 7,8 a 9 hefyd. ar ddiwedd yr wythnos, roedd athro blwyddyn 7 yn absennol. felly roeddwn i’n helpu cyflwyno prosiect yn barod. Prosiect blwyddyn 7 yw i dylunio a greu prosiect ceir roced. Roedd angen i nhw gludo ymchwil yn ei lyfrau ac wedyn ddechrau dylunio syniadau. Wnes i rhoi tips i’r flwyddyn o’r gwybodaeth fy hun ac hefyd dangos nhw’r ceir y flwyddyn diwethaf a trio i gael nhw i weld beth mae blwyddyn diwethaf wedi wneud yn dda ac beth mae nhw yn gallu gwneud yn well tro nesaf.

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Troi wend hyn, gall y ddisgyblion weld pa ffactorau bydd yn effeithio perfformiad y ceir roced.

Dros y’r wthnos nesaf, dwy mynd i cyflwyno wers i’r chweched ar prototyping a modelu. Heyfyd, rydym yn mynd i ddangos prosiectau fy hun i nhw allu weld beth yw’r disgwyliadau yn y brif ysgol a rhannu profiadau fy hun.

Dyma’r amserlen i dros y’r wythnosau nesaf.

 

Future Now

Future Now was a great project to work on in my opinion as it made me put my skills to test. At the start of project, we were put into a ‘design consultancy’ which included 2 Product Designers, 2 Architectural Designers, 2 Textile Designers and 1 Interior Designer. This made me excited from start as I knew I could learn different skills outside of my subject area. We was then given a brand and a product, in our case it was Swatch as the brand and Coffee Percolator. Once we was given the brand and product, I felt extremely nervous as I knew nothing about Swatch and absolutely nothing about a Coffee Percolator. I guess this wasn’t really bad thing. With a lot of research, my understanding of the brand and product was huge.

The task we was given as a consultancy was to negotiate and collaborate on researching the brand and projecting its future design strategy. Each designer within the consultancy developed their own individual design response to the brief but it was developed as part of a collective idea on the future brand representation.

As a Product Designer. My role was to design a Coffee Percolator which aligned with the brand Swatch. Tricky task right? A brand that makes watches, what would a percolator looked like if Swatch made one?

I started researching into Swatch as brand as thorough as possible, I then started ideation.

As a group we wanted to follow the main feature right through all of our work. That feature was ‘Time’ we felt like this was a massive aspect to follow right through the project to make it a successful one. For the ‘space’, we understood that the mechanics behind a watch was huge so we came up with the idea of an exploded watch. This aspect, was used as the main feature in the stairs of the space with the elevator in the middle of the building and the stairs built around, from this, we had floors coming off the centre, to make it look like the floors were moving. We was successful in making this happen.

Back to the product, I developed a few ideas with the watch face on the percolator. Swatch is a sustainable company so I thought it would be important for my product to be sustainable. By achieving this, I thought, why not be able to design your own percolator that you change the design of when you want.

Here is an example of the idea I had:

I got feedback from potential clients and the member in the consultancy and I had great feedback. I then went on to modelling and prototyping this product

I wanted it to be lightweight

Easy to use

And have an attractive interface

Heres a few sketches of my final design

Overall, from this project I gained many skills such as being able to contribute as a group, be able to negotiate, and be able to present my work confidently.

Sustainable Practise

Sustainable practise, what can I say.  With the huge interest I have in this topic, I thoroughly enjoyed this terms constellation from lecture 1 to lecture 8.

The 1st and 2nd industrial revolution, where the whole meaning sustainability started. In this lecture we were told about how system evolved from answering the basic needs, to the development of trade industry, commerce and ultimately globalisation. From this, we have become very good at making, selling and buying things. ‘Consumption’ is arguably a defining characteristic of our society.

We are in the linear economy state where we have intensive resource throughput, fast consumption and in a nut shell, we are unsustainable.

‘Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’

(Bruntland, 1987)

The circular economy. This is where we are trying to head for where there is closed resource loops, slow consumption and in a whole, sustainable.

One of the most important event in the 1st and 2nd industrial revolution was the new trade routes. No matter what commodities they transported, the new trade routes played a vital role in the formation of empires around the globe and were often sources for the exchange of not only goods, but of people and ideas.

Things moved to a completely new level in the 1900s onwards, mass production and greater wealth meant markets became saturated.

In the 1920s, there was a change of strategy, designers understood the needs and wants of consumers more and more. Henry Ford was a great example of this. With model T not changing and it only being in black, he basically understood that he would need a new strategy to up sales, and to do that he brought out numerous models and styles in different colours. This strategy had a massive impact on consumerism. High consumerism became reliant on obsolescence, particularly in relation to style.

Onwards to the 1960s, consumerism became a sense of messages, cars were a good example to express these messages, new car equalled to financial success, make model and age really mattered… excuse my wording… I mean ‘maters’, I say this because it is same today in the year 2017, we all want the best products and services, maybe to ‘show off’, or maybe just to improve our lifestyle.

Group Presentations

In the group presentations, we were asked to find an image of the product as it appears in the 1950’s and in 2016 examine the methods used to promote the consumption of the objects at each stage and produce a short PechaKucha style presentation (3 slide, 2 minutes on each), describing methods used at each of the 3 time points. My group had the TV. This was a great exercise in understanding the difference in marketing and being able to sell things in the 1950s and now in 2017. having discussed with the group about in inventions of radios, adverts on tv’s, adverts in papers etc… I found that obviously consumption was getting worse and worse with more ways to advertise, more and more people were buying TV’s where adverts were compulsory on screens, it was an easy way to sell things. Seeing adverts everyday on products, gave people the urge to buy new things. What did they do with their old products? Throw them away… Recycled? I doubt it.

“98% of products are thrown away within 6 months” this means that choices that designers have to make can have long term impacts.

Rethink and Eco innovation

This is a great way of achieving sustainable design. This means identifying new and better ways of fulfilling customers requirements which are also better for the environment. A great example from this are questions like ‘I do not need a drill. I need a hole in the wall.

Replacing products with services

This was a great topic for discussion. I learnt that it meant basically limited the amount of physical objects as products would be so much better for the environment but also it has it negatives. For example, hiring as oppose to buying products susceptible to technological obsolescence. Replacing products like mp3s for services like Spotify takes away a lot of material wastage which is great. The argument of the topic is that this still have wastage outputs. The amount of energy needed etc does not make this system sustainable.

From these lectures of constellation, it has made me a different person with the I act, think about products and the world around me. Instead of just having a creative scientific mind. It has given me a philosophical mind also. I have come to my own conclusion that achieving complete sustainablity is completely a wicked problem. From these lectures, i would love to conduct my own study and research further to prove that it is a complete wicked problem and we have to act in a different way and give completely different solutions.

 

 

 

IDEATION

Here is a brief image showing my ideation process. I have explored ideas with water, elastics, feathers and other elements.

Primary And Secondary Research

Primary Research

For my primary research I firstly went on to make a survey open to the public on social media

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I then wondered around Cardiff City Centre to observe how people walk on a day to day basis. What I found was quite extraordinary. I found that 4/10 people walk by planting their outside of their foot on the ground before the surface out of the foot. From this observation I could calculate new pressure points of the foot whist people walk.

Secondary Research

For my secondary research, I looked into a number of different factors that may affect having comfortable feet whilst walking. The first thing I looked into was products on the market and analysed their characteristics.

Dunlop Gel Insole

Keep your feet comfortable in the Dunlop Perforated Gel Insoles; featuring breathable perforated sections across the forefoot and heel combined with a soft gel design to help cushion the foot.

> Cushioned insoles
> Perforated strips
> Gel cushioning
> Dunlop logo
> Cut to size
> Feet freshness antibacterial technology

One of downfalls of this product is that its cut to size, therefore there’ll be a lot of wastage, therefore, this insole isn’t sustainable.

Dunlop Pro Gel Insole

The Dunlop Gel Insole benefit from ODRFRESH for a longer lasting freshness and lightweight and slim design, whilst the Gel arch and gel impact zone offers greater comfort and support.

> Mens Insole
> ODRFRESH
> Lightweight and slim design
> Gel impact zone
> Gel arch support

2 downfalls of this product is that the sizes are already cut but there may be wastage in stock. Also it has an arch support but every customer has a different arch support and it is not relevant to every customer.

Source: http://www.sportsdirect.com

Orthotics

During my research on orthotics, I looked into the good and points of orthotics and what I found was extremely interesting.

“Readers often tell me that they think they “might need orthotics,” but they rarely know more than that. The idea is based on an uncertain hunch that something about the way they walk and run can be fixed with a wedge of just the right shape under their feet — which is all orthoses amount to, even the fanciest ones.

Custom foot orthoses or orthopedic footwear or modifications can be really helpful … but mostly for specific, technical, and medical reasons.1 Meanwhile, there are many unscrupulous and shoddy suppliers of these products who will prescribe them for almost any problem — or none! — and the science is complex and incomplete. It is nearly impossible for consumers to know if they actually need any of these products, or where to get an expert prescription and a quality product.”

Source: http://www.painscience.com

“A lot has to fall into place before orthotics can possibly work. Even if you do have a biomechanical glitch at the heart of your RSI:

You must have a diagnosable biomechanical problem, probably something really glaringly obvious, because anything more subtle and you’ll probably get different diagnoses from different professionals.
The diagnosed problem must be relevant to your injury. This usually has to be a shot in the dark, because most RSIs are not clearly associated with any known biomechanical problem.
The problem must then be correctable at least in principle. Quite a few problems simply cannot be fixed by orthotics. It depends on the problem.
Assuming all of the above work out, you will still need to get the correct prescription, properly made.
If you can’t tick off one of those, the game is up: orthotics aren’t going to work out. It all adds up to a very long shot.

And yet orthotics could still be worth trying — particularly if you do have a fairly obvious biomechanical problem. Good orthotics are a reasonably good way of trying to “tinker” with any gait or postural dysfunction that may have contributed to your pain in the first place. For instance, unusually high arches are a plausible factor in runner’s knee.”

Source: http://www.painscience.com

From discovering these points, It’s obvious that orthotics is a very complex thing and its more than just rocket science. I know many people who are prescribed with orthotics and from this research, It tells me that the people who are being prescribed, may actually don’t need to be prescribed with orthotics. Is it possible to create an accessory like a swiss army knife and solve all the problems in one? This way, what ever the problem the customer may have, this accessory will never fail.

How do you know if your shoes aren’t ergonomic?

Shoes that are not ergonomic for you, especially if your work requires you to stand for long hours:

• High heels
• Pointed shoes
• Lack of arch support
• Wrong sized shoe – too loose or tight.
• Feet unable to breathe and as a result become overly sweaty which can cause fungal infections.

Source: http://www.ergonomics-info.com

By reflecting on this piece of research, I can see more areas to target in my ideation process. High heals, wrong sized shoes and lack of arch support are great examples to uncomfortable feet.

 

Comfortable Feet

I have decided to look into comfortable feet as my problem in everyday life. From working in a local sports direct store on the shoe department, I found it’s very important to have comfortable feet whether you’re walking the dog or playing football. I found that customers always had a problem with footwear… “Would you like to try a gel insole in that shoe?” that would be the question I would have to ask day in day out, but no, that is not always the answer to having comfortable feet. Every customer has different needs whether it’s the arch of their foot is the problem or the ball of their foot is giving them aches. Looking at existing products on the market at the moment, I feel they don’t meet all the required needs of the customers. Therefore I feel there is a gap on the market to come up with an all new solution to comfortable feet instead of the everyday ‘gel’ or ‘memory foam’ insole.

From discovering this problem, I then went onto making a spider chart of all the problems around the words comfortable feet.

These were the problems I felt may be a background to the problem of having comfortable feet.

The problems below, I felt were the biggest issues:

• Ergonomics
• Health issues
• Obesity
• Footwear for different surfaces

PRIMARY RESEARCH PLAN

• Interview members of the public on their favourite footwear brand and why?
• Observe how people walk (posture of the feet)
• Questionnaire (peoples opinions of the problem)
• Interview staff in stores such as clarks to see what kinds of problems customers come into to store and ask about. And also find their opinions on the problem

SECONDARY RESEARCH

• Posture of the feet
• Research into ergonomics of shoes and insoles
• Research into wearing lightweight footwear and heavy footwear
• Analyse existing products such as ‘insoles’
• The meaning of ‘comfort’

Results of the research coming soon…

Wicked Problems

In this lecture, we looked into the meaning of wicked problems in terms of design. It was interesting to find that what ever we do as designers, it is impossible to please everyone with whatever solution. We solve a problem, but within solving a problem, we create another problem, whether it may be a small or big design problem. We have to have an understanding of this and I found from this that it is important to find a balance with the design problem and the solution.

As a task, I was given the problem of graffiti as a wicked problem.

I looked at:

• Knock on effects
• Where
• Who
• Why
• Environment

Whatever solution you can create, there will be another problem created and not everyone will be happy with the solution. Some will want to get rid of graffiti for good and others find positives in graffiti. My opinion is that graffiti isn’t the problem, it’s the content. Graffiti can be very educational when used correctly and a lot can be learned from graffiti. Banksy is a perfect example.

Is sustainability a wicked problem in itself? I 100% believe it is.

Sustainability, how would you change the state of products?

During a design for sustainability lecture I had last week, it was interesting to see the problems we have with sustainability whether it to be around us every day or a problem within a product itself.

After this lecture, I have recently been researching into sustainability, for example the work of Leyla Acaroglu:

At 9:50 Layla talked about that energy wastage isn’t always a problem within the product itself, it’s how we use the product is where we get most of energy wastage. This information has made a huge impact on how I think about solving unsustainable problems. It’s not always about making vast improvements to products which most times result in huge costs that can be avoided, it’s sometimes about how people use products and how we can change peoples mperception or and how we can implement this.

Design For Sustainability

DISCOVERY PROCESS

For the discovery process, I used Cardiff for my centre of focus, I done numerous of comparisons of the surrounding area including Taff Trail v Western Avenue for transportation, Llandaff Fields v Bute Park for recreation, Tesco for consumption and local businesses for the economic side of sustainability.

Transportation

Taff Trail v Western Avenue

During my walk along western avenue the first sign of unsustainability was the traffic. Many cars, bikes, vans pass along this road every day and causes so much build up on rush hour times. Is poor road layout to be blamed? Maybe, but the fact is, billions of people choose cars over a more sustainable choice of transport like riding a bicycle to work and some would say it’s not improving.

Stepping onto the Taff Trail was a complete different world to walking along the Western Avenue. The first thing I noticed was a wide cycle path with many walkers, cyclists and runners using this trail. But one thing that really annoyed me, was the lack of bins, this encouraged people to litter and as a result, the path wasn’t very clean.

Recreation

Llandaff Fields v Bute Park

During the walk through these parks, in my opinion there wasn’t much difference with regards to sustainability. Both parks included many fields for sports such as football and rugby, outdoor fitness stations, picnic areas, nature trails and much more.

 

Consumption

Walking around Tesco and interviewing staff, I found many reasons for unsustainability but also some were very sustainable. First thing that I noticed was the lights in the car park. Lights are arguably one of the main reasons for energy wastage and every single light in the car park was turned on in the middle of the day, this is clearly unsustainable.

A food bank was included in the store and it was great to see that it was full and also I noticed that this store use local produce which is very sustainable.

Business

A local cafe that I went into was a small friendly family run business, the store used all local produce and also local sourced furniture which was nice to hear.

One thing I got from this research was that the world isn’t in a very good state at the moment and there are many problems for product designers to try to solve. As product designers, we have to be more sustainable and ideate around the word sustainable.