Week 2 Tutorial

As part of this weeks tutorial we were asked to bring an item to class and deconstruct it in our first Workshop session. 

I brought along a cheap $3 portable camping light purchased at The Reject Shop. However, due to not being able to find work boots my size (UK16) I was forced to sit out of the session and let my fellow group members do the deconstructing for me :(.

The Product as a whole before it was deconstructed

The removal of the battery housing (bottom left) and the light bulb refactor (pictured in hand)

The removal of the external shell (lid etc) allowed the extraction of the bulb and the components used to pass the electricity from the power source (x6 AA Batteries - See 2nd Image below) to the bulb housing and finally the bulb itself.

 

Light Bulb is removed from its housing elements

Here is an image showing only the battery compartment with its respectable wires which travel through the rest of the product to the Light Bulb's housing

As a result of the deconstruction process of my product and their own we were able to obtain a number of usable elements which we could possibly incorporate into our designs.The parts we obtained from this product specifically were;

- A switch

- A light bulb

- A light bulb socket

- Wires

- Power source

From these parts we then looked at combining them and making scenarios and possible products that related to our topic for the semester of 'News'. 

The first idea we had was using social media to its strength and combining it with jewelry we would device a product (piece of jewelry) that the user would wear, this product would then light up whenever the individual was in the same vicinity as one of their Facebook friends - being they walked past each other in the street without noticing, or they walked past a store that the other individual was currently in.

Credit to Steve for his wonderful drawing skills

Other products deconstructed were a Motorized Portable Reading Light & Various Remote Controls (TV Specific).

From these products we obtained a number of new components including;

- Pressure Pads

- More Wires

- More Power Sources

- Small Motors

 

Ahead of next weeks tutorial lesson we started to look at possible Input/Output products that could be designed in combination with the all components we took from the products we deconstructed.

Some ideas casually floating around were;

- An alert system for receiving mail - emails and/or letters

- Lights dimming/getting brighter as someones productive rates decrease/increase at a desk

- Lights changing colour depending on what type of news is received/updated on the internet

Joey and the initial trialing of the Arduino board, Hannah looking over notes/concepts ahead of discussion, Steve still in work mode.