DEVELOP3D - Technology for the product lifecycle

We’re rather used to getting slightly random sounding press releases through and often look at them and wonder “Why was this sent to us”. That said, the occasional thing comes through that while it might initially get that “Huh?” reaction, it starts to sink in.

Today I got one such email pop into my inbox from the folks at Kyp (www.kyp.com), a specialist in consumer engagement (or why people buy or don’t buy stuff), on consumer electronics shopping behaviour. While it was full of interesting details such as the fact that 56% of consumers still prefer to buy in-store, but carry out research online prior to large purchases, one result leapt out at me. The graphic below explains it nicely:

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This morning I had an email from Nick Harrison with an update and images of his Oakington Monoplane project. I had met with Harrison, managing director of product design consultancy Round Peg, earlier this year about an ambitious project he had embarked on - to recreate a legendary aircraft that had been built by local Oakington residents Alfred Grose and Neville Feary in 1909. Since 1998 when Harrison found a copy of a handwritten document, which gave details of the monoplane that had been built in a barn in this small Cambridgeshire village, he has become hooked. Despite having a busy consultancy to run, every spare minute has been dedicated to attempting to research and then build a replica of this monoplane.

In the process of replicating the plane, Harrison and his small team have used SolidWorks - mostly by bringing original photographs into a SolidWorks sketch. From there they sent the finished drawings to a CNC routing company who machined the ribs. (Anyway, for all the ins and outs read the article that Greg Corke and I wrote for Develop3D’s April issue).

Since I wrote the article, Harrison has been working on the plane’s undercarriage and has also managed to get it up on its wheels. This was all done in the nick of time for the recent Oakington Village Day 2010. “We got it up on its wheels for the first time half an hour before our village day opened. It turned a few heads as we pushed it along the road,” says Harrison.

To follow its progress as well discover the rich history of this monoplane and the original ‘flying men’ who built it, visit the Oakington Plane’s dedicated website.

Last week Wednesday I took a trip into London and one of my stops was the Royal College of Art (RCA) Design Degree Show 2010. This is the one degree show I always make time to go to and this year certainly didn’t disappoint. There was the usual mix of inspiring, thought provoking, innovative and totally wacky (well, in my opinion anyway).

On my nose around the various exhibits some that stood out for me included:

•   Echo (above) - a ‘plug and play’ smoke and fire detection system created by a group of students in the Innovation Design Engineering (IDE) department. A far cry from the boxy fire detectors many of us currently have in our homes.
•   Julian Bond in the Design Products Department (which is incidentally now headed up by Tord Boontje and this was his first Show as Head of Design Products) has been exploring automated craft. His idea for an automated craft machine enables unskilled makers to handcraft artefacts that have the same aesthetic and finished quality as mass-produced ceramic goods.
•   Another student in the Design Products Department - Emil Rosen - has created rather intriguing proposals for plumbed in and free standing sinks made out of Ultradur thermoplastic Polyester.
•   Then in the IDE department again I came across a project that can only be described as an enhanced sanitary towel. As well as serving its normal function, the Canary D-Pad also offers ladies the benefit of detecting the early warning signs of diabetes, for instance, with its integrated diabetes risk indicator.

I also made a stop at the Vehicle Design Department’s show as I’m always intrigued by what these MA students envision we will be transported around in in the future. As I wandered around I could see a general ‘eco’ theme amongst most of the project work. For instance, the winner of this year’s Pilkington Automotive Award for Best Design Interpretation, an award that has been running for the past 23 years and challenges the RCA students to use their creativity, skills and knowledge of advanced vehicle design technologies to produce ground-breaking concepts, had designed a driverless taxi powered by solar panels. Designed by Swedish student, Marten Wallgren, ‘The Grid’ (above) also includes the ability to connect to similar models on the road to create a ‘community’ charging grid. In Wallgren’s words: “The system consists of autonomous electric vehicles spread over a highly populated area. Together they create a flexible infrastructure of power sources to charge other vehicles in need of energy. The power is created by solar cells and when one vehicle is fully charged it autonomously connects to the vehicle next to it and helps it charge faster because it has twice as many solar panels.”

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