Task 2c - Climate Change- Who Killed the Electric Car??

Personal transportation has been one of the largest contributors of greenhouse gas emissions; this with combination of electricity generation, industry and agriculture, our planet is in constant stress of depleting sources of biofuels and atmospheric pollution. From observing this problem, great design and engineering have thoughtfully been practiced to address this damage to our earth through greener and emission free automobile.

In 1996, General Motors released to the citizens of America the first mass-produced and purpose-designed electric vehicle of the modern era, the EV1. An invention thought that would change the way urban residents commute to and from work. With an 80% energy efficiency compared to our conventional 20% fuel-efficient car, the EV1 produced absolutely no emissions and grew with a leasing market. Within 10 years, this extraordinary vehicle was then taken off all the roads due to politics over petrol and the continued use of the biofuel car was kept to make more money from petrol.

With our overloading consumption of fossil fuels, we are burning out a grave of air pollution, toxic emissions and drastic climate change, which not only will it be hazardous to human health, but we are destroying the planet that we live on. Though I may not be the most enthusiastic green designer to make a stand for this point, but I believe with our current technology and global status, we have so much potential to be countering our consumption of biofuels. It is such a shame that the people who have power and potential to turn the world into a much more earth conscious and greener place are only looking ahead to make money and not making change. In contrast, it is also very unfair for those who worked hard to make a change and designers and engineers dreaming for wonderful futures have no say for this cause and even the greatest inventions can be come trash, due to the differences of global values.

However, I believe the previous generations have only been strict to tradition and the coming generations who come to take over will be the ones who will make changes. With the growth in technology and design, the world will slowly be submerged into an era of green and earth friendly.

PSS: Exercise and Diet Re-habituation Program

Obesity has always been one of the most critical health conditions in the world. Whether it is eating disorders, lack of exercise, lack of self care, there are countless influences that lead up to conditions of overweight and obesity. This is especially found in Australia, which is known for one of the fattest and laziest populations.

In recent years he Australian government has also been promoting campaigns and initiatives to encourage the population to eat healthy and exercise healthy to reduce the risk of chronic disease in the long run. This goal is to regain a healthier Australian demographic and reduce the stresses put on healthcare.

"67.4% of adult 25 yrs and over of Australian Population is overweight, 7% higher than that in 2004 (World Health Organization 2007)"

In Country and suburban areas, it is 1.3 times more common to identify this weight increasing demographic. The rising obesity concern is most critical in Australians aged 55years and over, which a growing count that is approaching 1 million of this ageing population.

In 2004-05 or both men and women the proportion classified as overweight or obese was highest in the 55-64 year age group, with persons in this age group being twice as likely to be overweight or obese (72% of men and 58% of women aged 55-64 years) than those in the 18-24 years age group (36% of men and 28% of women).

Causes of Obesity in the 55-64 range include:
Uneducated of exercise routines (fatigue)

-Bad Diet habits or Eating Disorders

- Slowed down aging metabolism

- Lack understanding of own body

-Lack of Motivation

"Re-Active" is an Exercise and Diet Re-habituation Program Kit, which is designed as a government initiative. It revolves around a local community group, which allows people who are diagnosed as overweight or obese to be connected together and achieve lifestyle changing goals.

This Kit aims to:
• Educate in Healthy eating habits
• Promote Safe and Healthy Exercising routines
• Provide Motivation in physical exercise within a community group
• Keeping track of personal progress

RE-active: Exercise and Diet Re-habituation Program

Product Service Systems project reflection

Like most Design project, planning for a concept and beginning the development base of a new Industrial Design Idea, perhaps is the hardest part of any design work. It is even more difficult this time thinking in a large-scale manner and not just making considerations about a product by its own, but also designing the system that the product travels through.

As this project required us to work as a team, it all depended on the work force of each member and the management of the team. Particularly the beginning of the project was indeed difficult and it required a lot of researching into the surroundings of the product like current government schemes, initiatives and picking out the potentials or gaps within existing system.

Our group focused on the topic health, and consolidating on a concept was the hardest part, we went from, pest control, to personal training, smoking and even safe sex. After being baffled by the tutors to concentrate on personal training, health and obesity. Our group explored the depths of obesity, looking into existing services such as dietary, exercise and weight-loss programs and finally decided to push the idea into a product that cover these areas.

Finally the team agreed to design for the most crucial sector of obesity, which is the 55-64 year olds, who are the largest in the obesity/overweight percentage, due to the aging population and declining metabolisms of this age group. Our team’s goal was to:

• Educating in Healthy eating habits
• Promoting Safe and Healthy Exercising routines
• Motivation in physical exercise within a community group
• Keeping track of personal progress

This became a Kit and part of a government campaign called “Re-active”

“Exercise and Diet re-habituation program”

By JULIAN CHOW, EUGENIUS LAI, GABRIEL LY (University of New South Whales, Industrial Design)

Peer Comments

Marco Tallarida
Patrick Gates
Fanru Wang
Kiran Kashap
Gleb Labazine

Design for Disasters Project Process

BIO-SAFE: Design for Disasters

REFLECTION on DISASTERS PROJECT

The project was extremely difficult in the beginning, mainly because Tsunamis are such instantaneous disasters. In the beginning of the project I wanted to focus on response to disasters and life saving during a Tsunami situation. Due to costing and complexity of my products to save a small amount of lives, my designs were not as plausible solutions in a third world country.

With more research put into Sri Lanka after the Tsunami in 2004, there were many hardships caused to people, including Trauma, grief, loss, but most evident issue was health of people. Without health, they could not go on to rebuild their lives and sickness certainly brings only more trauma and more grief to the community. The biggest health problem Sri Lanka(not only Sri Lanka) faced was sanitation. People who lost their home during the disaster were sent to populated relief camps, food and water was quite sufficient to survive the people, but there was not enough toilets. It was also very evident that people were not disposing faeces correctly and excreting in places that cause contamination to fresh water they drink, causing many diseases and illness to people. Main affected demographic was particularly children, who drink from contaminated water sources and contracting sickness and Diarrhea, which leads to death from dehydration.

The project then took me into looking at biodegradable ways to store faeces, or even put human bio-waste to use, such as a biogas digester. My initial design was a collapsible container that can be installed underground to hold human waste. They were stackable and easily transported when a canister is full. The reason I wanted it to be stackable was because it can be easily taken to biogas digesters and fermented by anaerobic bacteria as gas for cooking. But the draw back of that design was transporting bio-waste material is unhygienic and extremely dangerous, and biogas digesters take a long time to digest fuel for an hour of cooking. The finalized concept is all about being back to basic and saving as much materials needed at a cheap cost, designing it with a less complex shape and low profile for cheaper tooling. It is versatile in order to mount any conventional toilet over the top and instead of a hard plastic canister, bio waste is contained in a flexible lining which molds to any hole shape and the whole system safely biodegrades.

This project indeed was a challenge, it was a race against time, but I enjoyed designing for real life situations and designing to ease a country’s post disaster conditions and improving their sanitation and hygiene










Julian Chow z3288968

STORY OF ELECTRONICS

In our 21st century life of heavy consumer electronics consumption, we all continuously keeping up with technology by throwing out our perfectly working appliance to home a brand new upgrade. So what happens to the working toaster you threw out last week, or your 1 year old motorola you trashed for that new iphone in your hand?

Designers for businesses/companies have been designing within a marketing strategy. A strategy where our products are made incomplete or with flaws, so that we feel a need to buy other things like accessories such as a specific charger or a fitting protective case to accompany our new toy. Through this flow of consumer business and unsustainable production lines, we can translate these short term products which are hard to upgrade easy to break and impractical to repair, as "Design for the dump".
We may be advancing and being up to-date with the latest gadgets and companies may be gaining a double in their sales, however we are also doubling product wastage, doubling the usage of toxic substances, doubling the consumption of the earth's resources and greenhouse gases. When we decide for a product to be thrown out, we are also taking waste to a cheap labouring country with workers taking apart the product and burning the useless stuff. So while we have our enjoyment from our brand new appliance we are poisoning families in poorer countries.

As Designers we need to be aware of our product's life cycle and the materials we use. Why not make our gadget last longer by making it upgradable or in a modular design, why not design so the product can be easily taken apart? Easily there are solutions to building a society made to last, but its up to a lot of depending power and us as designers to go easy on our earth and be intuitive with our designs by looking ahead of our products life

Blender Disassembly

Blender Disassembly

MODERN TIMES from BC2010 on Vimeo.

RECYCLING =D

We are truly all natural born waste makers, averaging nearly 750kg of rubbish per human in a year, this digit is still not devastating enough to make aware people aware of our global waste problems.

Do we ever think about where our trash goes after it reaches that big PE bin at the back of our house? Do we ever think about how the wastes that we throw out embeds a secondary use?

There are many ways to recycling, like having a compost bin for your food scraps and apple cores, using your car wash residue to scrub your driveway tiles, but these are just light examples of our everyday living. If we can raise our awareness to our wastes we can sort out many unwanted packaging, aluminium cans, plastic bottles and realise a lot of our trash can be broken down back to its basic property for re-use. A great example is our commonly found PET bottle that holds our everyday carbonated drinks and as inconsiderate human beings, littering the poor thing into the bush will only cause mother nature to reject it and will essentially stay as litter. Instead we can be a little thoughtful and throw it in a recycling bin, in which it can be taken to plants into a process of sorting, cleaning, grinding back into fine plastic powder, and it can be used used again in the same production line, or as other products.

In supporting recycling we must remember placing that bottle under the yellow lid is only the first part, but with the help of today's recycling technology and sophisticated processing lines, not only we are giving waste a second chance as a new product, we are able to save a lot of the earth's virgin materials and resources. As a way to save our planet, recycling is also an opportunity to improve our ecological structure and relieve the stresses we put on our environment. So remember before you establish something as waste keep an awareness of its recyclability and look for a secondary use.

Quiz results: Ecological Footprint Quiz by Center for Sustainable Economy

Quiz results: Ecological Footprint Quiz by Center for Sustainable Economy

Your Ecological Footprint

As human beings alive on this earth, we all live different lifestyles and cycle through a different habits of food consumption, energy consumption, as well as waste production. As a student I live in small family housing with a relatively good sized yard for my parents to grow their own greens. The family living is extremely simple and only use what we need, and most of the waste we produce are often returned to nature with mum's mini worm farm and compost maker. All members of the family leave the house early as soon as sunrises, so consumption of electricity is often low, but as a result of living quite far from the city area, going to work or uni is a long drive or trek on public transport, which causes consumption of petrol and fuel quite high.

Although we are considered a low energy consumption family and keeping living at a minimal ecological consumption, the rest of the world in total are unaware they are living in a range of high ecological consumption and are contributing to a depletion of the earth's resources.

My Ecological Footprint

So what is your Ecological footprint?