Yujie Zhang is a product designer who is trying to solve real-life problems through design to improve people’s lives. She has always believed that design makes our life more perfect, and with a little inspiration, designers can create a whole new world by continually analyzing and improving products.
Many students have more procrastination at home due to the impact of the epidemic. This phenomenon has inspired Yujie to complete this product design project. The right side of the page is detailed information about the product.
Looking forward to communicating with you, please feel free to contact me

Daniel graduated with a 2.1 in Aero-Mechanical Engineering from the University of Strathclyde in 2018, before spending a year working as a freelance photographer, videographer and visual artist in Glasgow’s thriving punk and alternative rock music scene. Having had work commissioned by or featured in a range of editorials including Noisey, NME, Dork, The BBC, Dr. Martens and many more, Daniel made the decision to return to university for the Product Design Engineering postgraduate MSc. course at GSA, allowing him to combine his passion for design and creativity with his already established academic ability in engineering.

While studying at GSA, Daniel has developed a focus on user-centred design, with a particular interest in user experience. Throughout the first semester of study, he contributed a crucial role on Teamentia, in the development of the Remelodies project. This project centred around carers for, and sufferers of dementia, finding a way to remove the clinical element from their pre-existing relationships, be that husband and wife, mother and daughter, father and son, two friends or any other possible combination. The project received notable praise from an expert, a Glasgow based dementia events co-ordinator, who was consulted throughout the project and later was highly commended in the SIE Fresh Ideas competition.

Daniel’s major project also centred around user experience, this time with the aim of finding a way to minimise the disadvantages faced by dyslexic students in education on account of their lesser reading rate when compared to their non-dyslexic peers. The final design solution (the Minstrel) is an audiobook reader with an enhanced user experience, allowing users; improved navigational controls, improved feedback on progress through a text, a method of highlighting from an audiobook and a way to avoid their place being lost should they lose focus on the audio-narration. Three diagnosed dyslexic students and one expert, a product design engineering lead from Rakuten Kobo, were consulted throughout the project. The final design solution was commended as an intuitive solution with solves a major problem.

I am a recent graduate in the Product Design Engineering master course. Having a background in Production Engineering and Management I am familiar with technical issues and I have developed strong problem-solving skills. However, I have always been more interested in people and nature than in machines and production lines. Being a Product Design Engineer gives me the opportunity to fulfil my passion which is to solve problems but with a more creative and human-centred approach.

This year at the Glasgow School of Art I learned a lot about design thinking and design processes and gained valuable skills for my next steps. As a member of the Covid-19 class, we faced practical limitations, but it was an opportunity to show flexibility and creativity and find alternative ways to complete our projects.

This project was based on my particular interest in sustainable design and a problem arising due to Covid-19 pandemic. This is the Personal Protective Equipment and the terrible consequences that this waste has on the environment. More specifically mask waste adds to the already existing plastic pollution, as it contains plastic layers. ECO UVmask is a reusable sustainable mask which offers high protection, focuses on human needs, has a portable case where it can be easily stored and sterilised and after its disposal does not remain in the environment.

My product, the InnerStrength body protector, aims to deal with the issue of impact injuries in amateur cricket. Within the context of modern batting, where the hard ball is hit powerfully more often, an opportunity was identified for a product that provides torso protection for both batting and fielding. The product (although of use to all cricketers) is targeted towards less-experienced players, with the aim of reducing the anxieties and vulnerabilities associated with facing fast, short bowling, and fielding close to a power hitting batter. The growing popularity of women’s cricket influenced the decision to have different gendered versions of the product in terms of size, especially as the so-called unisex gear on the market is often not an ideal fit (although more work needs to be done to further tailor the design for women cricketers).

The design process took a lot of unexpected detours, whether finding inspiration from spacesuits or the impenetrable skin of honey badgers, it was exciting to apply knowledge and ideas from a wide range of areas and apply it to the greatest sport in the world (cricket). The challenge of creating body protection was made harder due to the context of use including both batting and fielding – the full range of body motions to consider, from full length diving to vertical jumps, are too long to list.

Thankfully, throughout the process the GSA inspired human centred design techniques learned over a year of intensive study helped greatly in solving the small, medium and large problems that inevitably arise within a 12-week design time frame. The Design, Build, Test philosophy, allowed me to explore a range of design concepts efficiently and make calculated evaluations which ultimately fuelled the direction of the final product. This approach and the methods involved, is definitely something I hope to take forward into a career of design.

There is a need to adjust the physical layout of a standard video game controller for users with accessibility issues. I designed a controller that users can take apart and rearrange components so that they fit the user’s desired layout.

Additional faceplates can be purchased (or 3D printed) which would offer a wide range of input layouts for users. To accommodate all ranges of ability, the entire controller can be taken apart and re-assembled with one hand.

The idea behind this product is that it would become a new standard for video game controllers. New consoles would be bundled with the controller, and able-bodied gamers would be able to use it without any problems, as it features a regular layout and shape.

My Design Process Journal documents my journey from concept generation to the final product. The Technical Report provides an analysis on the feasibility of this project.

Final Project: AM-I is a wearable that continuously tracks the user’s blood glucose & heart rate variability. Designed for users with diabetes, AM-I helps people understand how stress impacts their blood sugar by providing biofeedback. The device uses the latest developments in continuous glucose monitoring and optical heart rate sensing to track the user’s biometrics. AM-I checks blood glucose and heart rate every 5 minutes throughout the day for 24/7 tracking synced directly to the user’s smartphone. 10-page Summary

I’m a product designer and mechanical engineer with work experience in the consumer electronics industry. Before attending GSA I received my Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 2015 and then worked for Apple in the haptics product engineering team for 4 years. I am currently looking for work in product design engineering, R&D, and new product development fields. For additional information and previous projects please see my website and LinkedIn profile.

As a designer, not only should be able to find problems, these problems may be hot spots around or be hidden dangers in the future. But also should provide an optimized solution, which meets the engineering conditions and the user-friendly experience.

This project aims to deal with the excessive stress and mental problems suffered by people as a result of self-isolation during the epidemic. This product adopts a wearable camera module to provide motion-sensing interactive games to help people increase indoor activities, reduce stress, and increase social contact.
The hardware of the product consists of two parts: a band with a sensor and power supply and a camera module that can work independently. When the user wants to play the somatosensory interactive game, first use the camera module to connect the projector. After successful pairing, open the band, put the camera module at a suitable place, and then close the band to select different motion modes to play the game.

This product is for special people in a special period (self-isolation, single person in the city closure period), so the use scene is indoor, at the same time, it needs to cooperate with the projector, TV screen, and other equipment to obtain the best user experience.

Why must space cost so much?

My Speculative Design aims to critique the space industries’ current practices and investigates the use of human power and innovative design to reduce the cost of payloads, energy-producing products and mobility vehicles.

Combining my years of industry experience in additive design engineering and new knowledge from The Glasgow School of Art I produced a product that can be modified in space. By utilising filament wound carbon fiber tubes and a Markforged 3D printer I created the first Open Source Mars Human Powered Mobility Vehicle. This initial design has been based on my research into the space industry. By utilising a 3D printer that prints continuous carbon fiber its possible to manufacture 3D printed joints in which the carbon fiber tubes are then able to be glued into, resulting in fully custom vehicles to suit the astronaut’s needs. This vehicle is designed for exploring further than on foot. However, it may be modified by adding a cargo basket to the front of the vehicle to allow the astronaut to collect items. By using this design and manufacture method it resulted in a design that can be reused, recycled, and readapted to suit whatever the astronauts in the year 2030 may require.

As part of my technical report, I investigated the feasibility of this vehicle and the astronaut’s ability to ride it in Mars, it works and it would be possible to ride in Mars, as long as the astronauts ate well.

My final outcome is a model kit, this would have been available to be used as a vessel to dream with had this been a physical degree show.

Currently, I am now working with Patrick Rennie of Mars Society UK to pursue this project further. We are looking to continue working on the engineering design and develop this further, hopefully taking this project to Utah or Oman for an analog space mission.

If you would like to read more and in further detail please contact me and I can share my design journal and technical report with you.

Talk to me about my project here:

The product is a building game product that helps children with physical isolation contact their peers or friends. Using the combination of physical toys and virtual experience, the remote interaction is achieved by building different building blocks in a cooperative mode. The combination of entity and virtual makes children meet the needs of remote interaction while increasing the sense of participation. When a certain goal is reached, the entity module will give users feedback with different lights, which will increase the fun of physical toys and the interaction between products and children. At the same time, combined with the use of intelligent devices, children can integrate their own toys into the built city and share them with friends, which increases the fun of products and deepens the communication between users.

I am a MSc Product Design Engineering student originally from Toronto, Canada. I have a bachelor’s degree in Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo and over 3 years of work experience as a Software Developer and Systems Engineer. Before starting my master’s degree at the Glasgow School of Art, I spent the past year and a half leading a cross disciplinary design team – specializing in designing websites, mobile and desktop applications. It was during this employment that I found myself more interested in design and user experience.

For my MSc Major Project, I worked in collaboration with the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery to develop a museum display case to tackle the issue of displaying light-sensitive objects in the presence of natural light. Through stakeholder discussions and a user centered design approach, the Setaka Smart Display was created. The final product uses two types of smart glass technology as well as an integrated IoT system to protect artifacts from both natural and UV exposure.

More examples of my past project can be found at: https://www.thanuree-pathiranawasam.net/

If you are looking for full time hires for September 2020, be sure to email me at: tppathir@gmail.com

Many people have mentioned that sleeping on a plane can be a painful experience, leading to the need for a deep rest when you arrive at your destination, which is bad for jet lag.This product promotes the secretion of melatonin by regulating human body temperature, so that passengers can have a good quality sleep during the long-haul flight.

Technology: Add an air pockets layer in the middle of the aircraft blanket, and control the insulation of the blanket through intelligent breathing:  introduce and outlet air from the blanket.This process is completed by intelligent air pump, which is connected with user smartphone and sensor. Also, the light belt on the pump can tell flight attendants whether to wake you up for meal. Controlling air content in the blanket can control human body temperature, promote the secretion of melatonin, thus promote deep sleep, and adjust human biological clock during the flight.

About the project:
There is a need of urgent action to decrease the negative impact on our environment driven by our current way of consumption, reflected in the waste generated and the plastic pollution. RESET is a system to help the user buy groceries in a more sustainable way through the use of reusable packaging to prevent waste; the system will operate with reusable containers for refill at the store and a Deposit-Return scheme for reuse, given reusable containers are much heavier than disposable ones, the trolley will help to carry and keep reusable containers safe during transport and for an organized storage at home. It is intended for grocery shoppers living in urban areas who must walk to the local store to do the shopping. RESET will be implemented in a future where consumer awareness will demand a better way of living.

About me:
Through this Master I have developed a wider knowledge and understanding of the importance of the design process for a successful product. It has also motivated me to focus on sustainable design, I believe designers have a responsibility to create products which not only improve the quality of life of the users but also mitigate and reduce the negative impacts on the environment.

As a product designer with over 8 years of experience I have worked in the industry of injection molding developing several projects from conception to manufacturing as main designer working with large companies in Mexico. My experience covers from the visualization of client’s needs, CAD modelling, prototyping by 3D printing and evaluating manufacturer adjustments. It has showed me the importance to consider every stakeholder in order to deliver a satisfactory product.

As the second biggest cause of sick leave in the UK, arthritis can severely affect a person’s life. More than 10 million people in the UK are living with the daily pain and fatigue of arthritis. It is not just about the almost constant pain, it is about losing independence and confidence, and not being able to live people’s life the way they want to. Enduring this type of ongoing, daily pain impacts every aspect of a person’s life, including in their jobs, relationships, finances, and their self-esteem and health. Living with arthritis isn’t easy and carrying out simple, everyday tasks like cooking, bathing, doing laundry and moving around the house can be challenging and often painful. Kitchen tasks are commonplace in everyday life and can therefore be prohibitively difficult for those living with arthritis.

The project proposes to enable people with arthritis to open jars that are essential to living an independent life. The project exhibits an innovative lid design which can be fitted to any jar and enables those with arthritis to open and re-seal a jar without experiencing the pain they commonly encounter at present.

The specific objectives of this project are:
Lightweight and easy to use design; Good airtightness performance; Significantly small force exertion (reduce torque to less than 2 Nm) required, thus decreasing impact on joints; Fit to any size of jar; A decent price product for household use.

The full design process journal file at google drive link below.

Nowadays, people concern more about environmental problems. In this project, I focused on two main problems, the first one is the decline of bees, the second one is the biophilic urbanization. In the early stage, I did some research about bees’ decline, such as the reason of it, where it happens and how large influence they will cause. The result is not good because nearly all over the world people suffer this problem, can it may lead to some bigger problem such as the shortage of food because about 80% of planted food is pollinated by bees. Another topic I focused on is the biophilic urbanization. Cases in Singapore and US proved its possibility, even urban agriculture can also be achieved in a biophilic city. These two points connected together when I was thinking the pollination the urban area, will urban environment suit for bee to live in? I did some other research about that, and in fact, bees can get better life in the urban area according to the research. So I decided to design a product which can enhance the biophilic feeling and also give bees a home in the urban area.I picked bench as the form of the product at the beginning, then I tried some ideas to discover the possible solution. After choosing an idea, I began to optimized it, I considered about its structure, material, the user experience and if it good for bees. During this period, I build the 3D model for simulation and testing. I met a problem when designing a connection component, because there were so many obstacles need to be avoided and the structure should not block the sunshine for the plant, so I used generative design to build the component, and I felt really happy with the solution it provided. The result of the simulation was quite good, it proved the structure of the bench could be safe enough when being used in an outside environment.

I used to have a bachelor degree in Material Science and Engineering from the University of Science and Technology Beijing. After graduating, I chosed to transfer my major to Product Design Engineering. In the past year, I learned a lot about product design in Glasgow. As the last project of my master’s study stage, I focused on the topic of “Future Food Supply”.

FUTURE FOOD SUPPLY
Shared Food Delivery Robot for Urban Balcony Farming

There is huge diversity in the way people usually get food today, such as meal deal from Tesco, takeout, cooking at home, fast food, etc. But what the food supply will be in the future？There may be more possibilities.

Analysing based on Speculative Design, both physical store disappearing and more direct contact with food producer are possible futures. But, No matter which one will be the future, Freshness is very likely to be still one of important requirements. From another angle, lots of food were wasted in past few months due to epidemic because some people over-purchased surplus food. However, residents live in my apartment shared their surplus food with neighbor, which reveals the huge potential benfits of social participation for dealing with food supply.

Accordingly, in order to provide food as fresh as possible and improve sense of social participation, I decided set Urban Farming as Main Context and Surplus food Sharing as Main Concept. Then I initially created such background: There is such kind of apartment with balcony farms and residents could share food with neighbor. Based on this scenario, lots of evidence support me to design a food delivery facility. And I developed my design concept from smart tracking cart to one-piece delivery robot and finally to modular delivery robot. More detailed Design Process Journal on the right illustrates entire concept development and design process.

Final product were designed to contain two parts: Sharing Box and Travelling Robot. There are 1 sharing box per household which is used to store surplus food and 2 travelling robots per 8 households which is used to transport box automatically. As for how it works, the project poster and video on the right shows a story which may be of great help for you to understand it.

Susan grows three species of vegetables on her balcony. One day, she harvests some and reserves what she need. Then she puts surplus food into sharing box and uploads sharing data with her phone. Few mintues later, travelling robot sends notification to her when it arrives. The sharing box is placed on robot and will be transported to the sharing room. Travelling Robot can find the path automatically, including taking lifts. In sharing room, zhang, as a volunteer, will take sharing box off and sort food inside. If sharing box away, travelling robot is free to execute the next command controlled by the cloud server. Go back to susan, her son fells not satisfied with only three types of vegetable. So she orders some food other grows. If informed a new order, zhang will pick this order into an empty sharing box and send them by travelling robot. Finally, although susan just grows three types vegetables, what she can get will not be limited in these three species.

In conclusion, this product will help to build a cooperative community in a building where residents can get various fresh food directly from balcony farms mainly in order to meet their requirement of freshness and social participation.

Thank you for watching. Any thoughts or suggestions are welcomed.

The rapid development of smart phone photography has brought great threats to the camera field. Now more and more people are using mobile phones to take pictures and share them with friends. It seems that cameras have been making slow progress. I try to think about the existing forms of cameras from a new angle, hoping to bring new thoughts to the development of the camera field.

CITRUS
Turning Citrus Peel Waste into Valuable Kitchen Cleaning Products.

Inspired by a juice bar throwing a lot of orange peels every day, a thought was triggered. How can those peels, the material gifted by nature, be thrown into the trash can without thinking about it? This kind of natural material, called ‘waste’, deserves to be treated more appropriately.

In terms of chemical properties, orange peel essential oil have excellent antibacterial properties that can be used as natural substitutes for chemical detergent. In terms of physical properties, the treated orange peel can be transformed into biological materials.

So this project will take advantage of the chemical and physical properties of orange peels. Firstly, extract the essential oil from the orange peel which has antimicrobial property as a natural dishwashing detergent to replace the chemical dishwashing liquid. Then, convert the remaining orange peel after extracting essential oil into a dishwashing tool to replace the non-degradable polyester sponge.

This project presents a peel waste recycling system that is neglected in daily life to users in the form of products. It hopes users can more truly experience the process of giving peel waste a second life.At the same time, hopefully, the peel recycling process will get people thinking about: how can we redefine the use of this so-called waste? And how can we collaborate with beneficial natural systems to create more sustainable material prototypes?

My major project, RIPPLE, is a dynamic cushion with incremental haptic feedback for sedentary behaviour. It could trigger the user to get up from seat regularly through the gradually rising bumps from its surface. Compared to the current way of reminding (such as phone alarm), this kind of ambient feedback is likely to interrupt the workflow of the user.

To achieve this function, I developed a non-electrical structure with air cell, flow control valve and foam spring. When the user sits on it, the seat will drop with the air released slowly. After a certain time, the seat will contact the bumps, which provide an incremental stimulation to the user. After the user gets up, the air cell will rebound with the foam spring inside, inflating air and return to the original height.

Making our digital communication more human.
Beyond words, our prosidy, intonation and dozens of other cues serve to derive meaning and empathize during a conversation. Video-calls make it difficult to pick-up on these cues, which can alienate and fatigue the participants.
This product uses ultrasound and optical sensors to capture non-verbal cues and respresents them using vibration, heat and light. It is designed to be centered around a mutual remote activity, which creates a sense of being in the same space. I tested the prototype with multiple users to prove this concept and they reported an enhanced sense of connection and see the potential for this product as a new way to interact online.

Andrés is a Venezuelan Italian product designer. He has experience with medical devices, rapid prototyping, art, and most recently came from the United States where he worked as an engineer in the development of commercial jet engines. He now focuses on human-centered design, with emphasis on a creating a healthy relationship between nature and technology. He is actively seeking positions as a product designer in the UK and Europe.

To see more details on this project and the rest of my work, please follow the link below (GitHub) to see my portfolio

Hi there! I’m Becca Ferguson and I have just completed my MSc in Product Design Engineering through the joint program between the University of Glasgow and Glasgow School of Art. After receiving my bachelor’s degree in Applied Mathematics from Colorado School of Mines, I went on to work for 4 years as a software engineer before joining this program.

For my final project I decided to merge a few of the things I enjoy in life – the outdoors, sustainability, and challenging puzzles. As a result, my project focused on improving the environmental impact of outdoor bouldering gear. User interaction and feedback (another favorite of mine) directed my project towards improving the lifecycle of bouldering shoes through application of circular design principles. Ultimately, the design selected was a completely biodegradable beginner bouldering shoe partially comprised of waste materials from other industries.

PROTECTOR

A pair of smart rings could remind you to do not touch your face and wash your hands for 20s

About my design: These smart rings mainly have a fluid sensor and a Three-axis accelerometer and gyroscope sensor. It can detect the tendency of face-touch behavior and also the handwash case. when you have the tendency to touch your face it would vibrate 0.5s to remind you that you have the unconscious face-touching behavior. when it detects that you are washing hands it starts to count and vibrate for two seconds at the twentieth second to tell you that you can finish washing your hands.

Background: People are worried about back to work as the epidemic is not over yet. I also found that people would quickly adapt to the work environment and their awareness of self-cleaning protection may decrease although they said that they are worried about back to work at the beginning. During the observation, I found that what we really need attention is the potential danger of our unconscious face-touching behavior, besides wash hands for 20 seconds is also needed to reduce the risk of unconscious face- touching behavior but most people can’t accurately account to 20s for hands washing. So what if people could be reminded to do not touch their face and also could know whether they have washed hands to 20s.

How to use: As for how to use it, if we start it for the first time it will automatically go into setting mode, and what we need to do is to follow the instruction to record two positions, and the red led would flash to lead you. once you complete set you can start to use it and next time you can click it three times to reset the positions again if you want. Now we can start to use it, we don’t need to do anything in this stage, just wear them on our hands, once you have the tendency to touch your face, it would vibrate 0.5 seconds to remind you, of course, you can choose to continue touch and put your hands down, if you choose to touch your face it would not vibrate, cuz at this time you already realize that you are doing the unconscious face-touching action. And it would only vibrate again the next time you have the tendency to touch your face. And for the wash hand vibrate remind, once it detects that there is handwash liquid and starts to count, and once you use it wash for the 20s it starts to vibrate 2s to remind you that you can finish washing.

My portfolio:

Portfolio of my final project, more details information about my design process and also the product

Hi everyone! I am Adarsh Vijay and I am a Product Design Engineer with a background in Biotechnology engineering. My ambition is to work in the medical devices and in-vitro diagnostics sector. Design for the medical industry is my aspiration. Designing equipment and devices interlaced with biological processes and human anatomy and morphology makes up for my redefinition of User-Centred design. If you would like to know more about how my services can help your company, please send me an email at adarshvijaykl@gmail.com

About the project:

Sharps are medical devices that are used to puncture or lacerate the skin. They include hypodermic needles, scalpels, contaminated glass, guidewires and other medical devices. The World Health Organization estimates that 16 billion injections are administered world wide every year.

The major problem with sharps waste is sharps injuries which causes transmission of Blood Borne Viruses such as HIV, Hepatitis, Epstein Barr virus among many others. Sharps injuries are responsible for 16,000 HBV; 6,600 HCV and 5,000 HIV infections worldwide annually.

From 2012 to 2017, NHS had 1,833 injury claims which cost the NHS £4,077,441. NHS estimates that 40,000 needle stick injuries occur within the workplace per year and recognizes that the true figure may be twice this due to under reporting of injuries.

The main causes of sharps injuries as listed by the NHS are:

Non-compliance with standard infection control precautions
Inadequate disposal of clinical waste
Overfull sharps bins
Not using safer sharps and
Not using Personal Protective Equipment.

My design is that of a sharps bin that uses a needle remover to immediately isolate the needle to prevent further injuries to Health care workers and sanitation workers. It also helps to segregate the wastes. The product itself can undergo steam sterilization for disinfection thereby making it reusable. At the end of life, the DSharps bin is recyclable.

This product can help the NHS to eliminate sharps injuries through a sharps bin and create a safer environment for the Health care workers. With the ever increasing mountain of plastic waste, this immediate segregation of wastes will provide more options for recycling thereby help saving the environment as well.

According to the data from CIPA, the global camera sales drops 87% from 2010 to 2019. With the huge improvement of smartphone camera sensor. The traditional camera market has been compressed a lot. The main reason is that the portability, usability and travel experience of smartphones are much better than DSLRs and mirrorless cameras. However, the image quality of traditional cameras still has an absolute advantage over smart phones. Some travel photography enthusiasts and photographers must carry heavy equipment to shoot in order to pursue the ultimate image quality when traveling which greatly reduces their travel experience. Besides, the camera is difficult to access while the user is moving. In addition, the structure of DSLRs and mirrorless cameras lacking ergonomic design in some aspect. For instance, insufficient adaptability for different shooting positions, the selfie holding experience are not considered. The last but not least, in order to get clear images in low light conditions, travel photographers usually use a tripod to stabilize the camera body, but the tripod is inconvenient to carry and setup. This product is designed to improve the travel experience and better ergonomic design of traditional cameras. To let travel photography enthusiasts and photographers use the camera more conveniently during journey. The portability and usability of the camera are enhanced through redesigning of the camera’s shape, structure and holding gesture. The solution is designing the camera body as a cylindrical shape so that users can put the camera in the side pocket of the backpack and use a rotatable quick-release grip to achieve multi-angle shooting capability. The grip can be easily setup as a tripod as well.

I have always had a natural urge to find and attempt to solve problems. I have this desire to just try and make things a wee bit better, which can be frustrating, but I believe it’s healthy.

I completed my undergraduate course in Production Engineering and Management at Strathclyde University. After giving a strong foundation in engineering and design, this course then focused on optimising manufacturing systems, and process improvement. I have worked with various manufacturing companies, from the automotive industry to the drink industry.
However, I was always an extremely creative child – constantly drawing and painting. I started to realise that I was missing something, as I wasn’t able to find many ways to be creative in manufacturing. I began to recognise there may be a way to remedy this, as well as advancing my prior education. This Product Design Engineering course has, I believe, come at just the right time. It has allowed me to further develop skills I already possessed, as well as open my eyes to aspects of design I could never have imagined.

This course has given me the confidence to say that, if you put any situation at all in front of me, I can come up with some kind of improvement. From using empathy, being able to make connections, find a root cause, problem solve, co-create with users, ideate and rapidly create concepts, and build, test and iterate, I now have this box of tools that I will carry with me.

All I hope is that I keep moving forward. As it is the process of identifying problems and finding creative solutions that I enjoy, I am not fussy about a particular company, industry, or direction – so long as the ethos of the space I end up working in aligns roughly with my own.

After graduating from the University of Dundee in 2019, with a BEng (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering, I am extremely proud to have completed my masters in Product Design Engineering at Glasgow School of Art. Having worked within a range of companies over the past 4 summers, including Camlin Technologies and Bell Architects, I am excited to further use the skills I have developed to widen and grow my knowledge of the field of design.

The Project
TORC addresses the issues faced by front-line hospitality staff in loud social venues when it comes to balancing adequate hearing protection with their ability to effectively communicate with customers and other staff members.

The noise level in many social venues such as restaurants, bars, and clubs often exceeds 95decibels – enough to cause permanent hearing damage after just 15 minutes. Staff have the highest exposure time to this noise however less than 30% report using hearing protection provided by their employer, a frequent reason being that it interferes with their ability to communicate verbally with others.

TORC aims to alleviate this issue by providing a ‘hotspot’ style solution that facilitates direct communication between the staff members and customers. It achieves this by using a mixture of technology including microphone array beamforming to filter customer voice from background noise, ultrasonic speakers for relaying staff members voice directly to the customer contact free, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons for hands-free intelligent operation, and a staff-worn headset that provides hearing protection and connectivity.

For more on the project see Design Process Journal 10-Page Summary

About Me
I am a product design engineer though and through having graduated with a 1st Class BSc(Hons) in the subject from Liverpool John Moores University in 2018. Before deciding to return to study for a masters degree, I worked for 2 years at a company in North-West England designing bespoke digital signage and interactive kiosk solutions supplying UK and worldwide brands including McDonald’s, JD Sports Group, Bibliotheca, Vue Cinemas, Tesco, and Google.

During my time at GSA I have been able to further my understanding of both the product design and engineering sides of PDE. Bringing these two disciplines together during the design process is what interests me the most – developing well thought out technology solutions based on a user-centred design approach.

Following the completion of my MSc, I am primarily looking for roles in new product development that could involve working on projects of all kinds from initial concept and user research through to manufacture and support.

For more about me see my LinkedIn and for previous work check out my Behance page which is being continuously updated.

I came to the course from a mechanical engineering background since I wanted to make a difference to people’s lives and could not see much potential for that in my previous field. I enjoyed the course and being able to learn new design skills with classmates from all sorts of walks of life.

The FretFriend

Learning a new instrument can be difficult in the early stages when a student needs more feedback to keep them right. For this reason, I started working on a project which would later become the FretFriend.

The device gets fitted to the fretboard of a stringed instrument and connects to a screen to give the user real-time visuals of what they are doing. This means that they can check that they are holding the right chords without having to split their attention between a sheet of music and their fretboard. Using the screen in this manner allows the learner to get more confident in their fingering and build up their muscle memory playing the instrument.

Additional functionality has been considered which would allow the FretFriend to be used for fingering practice without the use of the instrument, meaning a user could take the device on public transport during a commute and practice chord transitions and handling using their phone for feedback.

The instrument used in developing the product was a four-stringed ukulele, but simple modifications can be made to the design to make it suitable for instruments with more strings, such as an acoustic guitar. Other considerations have been made for left-handed users as a change in orientation may be required for the device meaning that the inputs from the user would need to be inverted.

I’m Rishi. I got my undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Arizona. There, I worked as an Undergraduate Research Assistant for a year. My emphasis was in mathematics and mechatronics.

For this project, I worked to design the concept for a product that helps to alleviate the problem of distraction. In our current society, sustaining focus for extended periods of time has become a challenge. Even if it is for something we love to do, like a good book or a film. The final solution I designed is a headband that uses EEG technology to measure the user’s attention. The device then gives the user subtle feedback when attention drops. Over the long term, the device trains the user to improve their focus.

I am looking for work in the UK as a mechanical engineer and/or designer.

The project starts from photography. While after the research on the increasing amount of digital images generated by people, I found a problem on the rapid development of information and communication technologies and the carbon footprint it brings. According to the research about photo storing, it is estimated that there will be 1.4 trillion pieces of photos taken by people,and over 7 trillion pieces of photos will be stored by people.With the advertising of cloud storage service, more and more photos will be sent to cloud data centers by users, which means more energy will be consumed to storing data of digital images.

With the further increase in Internet penetration, more people will use personal computers and mobile phones. The large amount of data needs to be stored. More data centers will be put into use. Depending on scope, in 2020 ICT stands for up to 7% of the total global electricity use. In the future, we can foresee that human society will invest a lot of power and manpower to operate data centers. While it is our responsibility to protect our environment, we should think about how to build a greener Internet.

While most photos uploaded to the cloud storage are seldom viewed by people, I am thinking about storing them locally to reduce the energy used as well as protecting the privacy.

Current prices of prosthetic legs cost between £3,000 to £50,000. For adults, a new prosthetic leg is needed every 2-5 years. Furthermore, lower limb amputees normally have several legs for different purposes. Amputees spend an average of £100,000 extra in their lifetime compared to non-amputees due to their limb loss and adaptations to their lifestyle.

Prosthetic feet are mass manufactured products, which are usually still expensive. Patients don’t usually get feet which are optimal for their biomechanics due to lack of analysis and budget constraints on clinics.

3D printing has been at the forefront of prototyping for many years now, but it has seldom been used in final production. For my final project, I explored opportunities where 3D printing could be used as an actual manufacturing solution. 3D printing is a solution that can lower the cost of prosthetic feet, whilst also tailoring each foot to the patient, leading to better walking mechanics and rehabilitation. This project explores a workflow that can be conducted to quickly adjust a foot framework for each patient to suit their individual needs.

Product design engineering has allowed me to apply my technical skills from my traditional mechanical engineering degree to solve problems through design. Moving forward, I am excited to continue developing my skills in design engineering and I’m actively seeking roles or research opportunities in mechanical design.

is a British Product Design Engineer with a background in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, whose MSc final project is titled ‘Designing For The Homeless‘.

It was identified that the Glasgow housing crisis is particularly affected by two key problems; a poor perception of the homeless by the public and homeless sleep deprivation. The negative connotations surrounding the homeless population and a resulting lack of human contact makes it difficult for them to get the support they need. Sleep deprivation is an unrecognised concern for most homeless people. Rough sleeping is mentally, physically and emotionally draining, and the constant exposure to noise leads to ailments like insomnia that further impacts the homelessness stigma.

Introducing Caraid; a system that utlises RFID technology and white noise sleep therapy to address these issues. An associated service was designed which sought to change the way the public interacts with the homeless, by encouraging empathy and initiating contact.

M – Charge Pile

In the past five years, the electric vehicle market has developed rapidly, which result in an increasing requirement of charging. However, users do not feel charging at public is convenient with more charge piles. One of the reasons cause this problem is the bad distribution of commercial charging resources.

In order to deal with that we put forward a more flexible commercial charging solution which named M-Charge point. It runs on the rail and charge pile could move along that to charge a vehicle in different positions. Reserve the original way of providing service – serving one parking space with one charging pile, it serves five even ten parking spaces at different position, which improves the efficiency of resource and save the cost of  construction.