Reflection For ‘Design 4 Disasters’ ‘Independence Charger’

When designing of ‘Design 4 Disasters’ I found that although it was an interesting and at many times and enjoyable assignment it was still a very difficult assignment to conceive ideas for in the first place.

When first doing the research for the assignment for the group it was extremely interesting and at many times slightly shocking to read about the horror of the experiences had by the people who were affected by the 2004 tsunami. But that was definitely the easy part of the assignment. When it came to the part where we were required to conceive concepts for the assignment this is where the difficulties of the assignment started. Conceiving the first three concepts was a very difficult process, even with the information from our research in front of me it was still hard to see areas where solutions could be employed that hadn’t already been employed.

When designing my initial concepts I set myself a couple of guidelines that I needed to address, not to use electricity to work, be rugged, easy to use and small so it could be deployed quickly. I think that these limitations may have hindered me a little and made it more difficult for myself. When it came to the first presentation day I had not been able to come up with any ideas that I was sold on and wanted to pursue. In order to be able to complete the assignment with any conviction or effort I decided that it was best to come up with a new idea.

By the next week I had come up with the concept that would become the ‘Independence Charger’, I had come up with the concept but it was deemed that I needed to do more research on the technology that would be employed in the product. It took me too weeks to get enough information to properly design the product and by this point we had only two weeks left in the assignment . I think that this loss in two weeks really damaged my design a bit because there was a loss of between a week and a half to two weeks in development. This development would have done a lot more for my design, but due to a bit of laziness and personal issues I was not able to capitalise on the time that was available to me.

When starting the next assignment I am going to have to start earlier, and to find a system of getting ideas down straight away and to get the ball rolling. I also think that setting the limitations for my designs at the beginning limited my idea conception; I will not be doing that again.

This assignment although difficult was enjoyable when I had an idea, when there was no idea to work on I found it a very tedious and unenjoyable assignment but this was because of the stresses of not having an idea to work on.