1. Principles and practices¶
Week 1 Goals:
1) Brainstorm Final project ideas.
2) Decide on a final project.
Final Project Idea¶
Idea 1
As with medicine I believe prevention is better than a cure. Having been a motorcycle rider for a few years now the biggest hindrance to Rider safety is visibility. Motorcycles are much harder to see than other road going vehicles and I intend to solve this issue in my final project.
My inspiration is drawn from the delivery drivers who work tirelessly in Korea and two mentors here in the fab lab. I noticed when I came to Korea that most motorcycles have randomly colored LEDs placed around the engines and tanks which I found odd until I saw the delivery drivers weaving in and out of traffic looking like Christmas lights. They were to make them more visible to cars on the road. The concept was strong but a strip of LEDs could definitely be improved upon. Why not have a full display which communicates intuitively valuable information to surrounding cars such as turn signals stop signs etc
My goal is to design and fabricate a smart LED Jacket that uses sensors to display much larger and vivid messages to the surrounding drivers and announce the presence of the rider in order to make their presence known and hopefully decrease the likelihood of accidents as a result
Idea 2
Upcycling refuse bin & sorter
The robotic printing and recycling workshop hosted by IAAC and Seoul Innovations Fab Lab as I stated in my introduction truly opened my eyes in so many ways to the possibilities which digital fabrication can make a reality. It also introduced me to the Precious plastics initiative which I think is a truly important initiative which could really do some good in this world. While this was a very state of the art version of upcycling there are much more basic things which we can do to to help educate and reinforce good recycling principles. My target market so to speak for this project is underprivileged and impoverished communities especially in Africa as these are both the most the most in need of education and protection from pollution.
I intend on desiging and fabricating a recycling bin that both educates and inspires the youth to get involved in recycling and also make upcycling an easier process for those who will be using these materials.
I would love to eventually develope an intelegent sorting system that can Identify different types of plastics and sort them for recycling but that can be something I develope in the future. In my experience with these upcycling projects I have noticed that plastic bottle caps are among the most useful materials. So I will focus my project on plastic bottles, bottle caps and labels.
So my idea combines a recycling bin, a sorting machine and an arcade system to encourage kids to recycle they will be awarded one token for each plastic bottle cap they recycle which they can play a small game like flappy bird which can be prgrammed on an arduino.