This week we presented our second project for KIB100. For project 2 we were split up into groups, with my group consisting of myself, Pete and James. Our task was to come up with an idea to solve a certain problem. The problem in question was to assist people who were physically disabled, either temporarily or permanently, in a way which would make their everyday life much easier.
One of our group members, James, suggested that we try to assist people whom have been disabled temporarily due to Lower Body Incapacitation. We agreed that it was a good idea seeing as James had been experienced in the damage, its treatment, and also how it affected his everyday life. This gave us a good foundation to base our research on.
I researched knee reconstruction and hydrotherapy in order to find out more about the disability and treatment. We decided that we would design a device that would simulate hydrotherapy by simulating weightlessness of the lower body as if it was submerged in water, allowing the user to continue doing everyday activities while rehabilitating with hydrotherapy. This idea was very unique in my opinion, although a bit too futuristic. My tutor pointed out that my sketch for our device should have had more detail in order to show the features of the device and how it worked. Our 1 minute video explained what our device did, but not how it worked, this is because we were low on time. We made a simple animation using pictures that we took of a doll, and it resulted in a funny, somewhat anecdotal way to finish our presentation.
Our powerpoint was professional, as we had a uniform layout and theme. We also had a logo which was made by Pete, which was situated in the corner of every slide, giving the powerpoint a very professional aesthetic. I had not thought of unifying the powerpoint with the theme of the brand, and I did not even consider making a logo. The positive feedback from our tutor (who is reading this right now, Hi John!) showed that using a themed powerpoint with a matching logo is a great way to make our ideas look a lot more professional. James was the speaker during the presentation and he did an excellent job. In my opinion, the presentation would not have worked as well if we had split up the speaking, as it was unnecessary.
James and Pete were great people to work with, as they were easy to communicate with and I was comfortable sharing my ideas with them. It was great to work with someone with experience in the problem we had to solve, as we got to hear his first hand experience with Lower Body Incapacitation. Our workload was spread evenly and we all contributed to the final presentation.
This, like the Mini-Charrette, was a great way to prepare for our final assessment, I learned a few more things on what to add to the final product in order to get a much better result and a much more professional presentation. In all, I feel that I am ready for the final charrette, I am happy with the many new things that I have learned, and I am happy to be working with Pete and James again.
Liam Sheppard 