It took thinking, rethinking, making, remaking and a good lot of effective teamwork, this project. It introduced me to a set of new challenges, tactics and, of course, made me develop skills of model making, teamwork in creative work and ‘selling’ work.
The journey of Group 3, us, was laid slowly, steadily with brick that did not always fit perfectly, but ended of forming a strong wall, idea and project. We had chosen Hearing to be the sense we would alter, heighten with our design, and we had decided to tackle the problem, characteristic of The Parkside Building- loudness, the constant buzz. But the design, its concept, mechanics, we had lesser of an idea about. What it was going to be, what would be the effect was something that was changed quite a few times during the course of the two weeks.
We started off by trying to make the user of our proposed design be more self-aware, to limit themselves from the crowd. We would do the so called Self-Awareness Backpack, which was to be a long tube strapped on to your back, with one end at the mouth of the user, the other at the ear. We did not evolve on this idea, because we thought it lacked design complexity and some of our group did not like it, to be fair. We moved on to earphones, which could block out sound if set in one way, or let altered sound, if set in another way. We developed sketch models of this, we worked on a mechanism of blocking out sound and the ergonomics of the ear pads, but the effect was so unnoticeable, we could do nothing but change the idea drastically once again.
The journey of Group 3, us, was laid slowly, steadily with brick that did not always fit perfectly, but ended of forming a strong wall, idea and project. We had chosen Hearing to be the sense we would alter, heighten with our design, and we had decided to tackle the problem, characteristic of The Parkside Building- loudness, the constant buzz. But the design, its concept, mechanics, we had lesser of an idea about. What it was going to be, what would be the effect was something that was changed quite a few times during the course of the two weeks.
We started off by trying to make the user of our proposed design be more self-aware, to limit themselves from the crowd. We would do the so called Self-Awareness Backpack, which was to be a long tube strapped on to your back, with one end at the mouth of the user, the other at the ear. We did not evolve on this idea, because we thought it lacked design complexity and some of our group did not like it, to be fair. We moved on to earphones, which could block out sound if set in one way, or let altered sound, if set in another way. We developed sketch models of this, we worked on a mechanism of blocking out sound and the ergonomics of the ear pads, but the effect was so unnoticeable, we could do nothing but change the idea drastically once again.
Through experimenting with a plastic cone and a sound recorder, we came to the final idea of the project. We attached a cone of a light plastic by the small end of it to a sound recorder, with a functionality of an amplifying microphone, a super ear, if you will. The aim of the first component of the model was to focus in on a single sound source, the aim of the second- to amplify this effect. We tried out different shapes of the cone, different materials, to find which would work the best for capturing sound and would be easy to use and handle.
Our final design, The Sound Hoover, was made out of light, transparent pink and grey plastic, polypropylene. It was the easiest to use, light and flexible, and, once the cone was made neatly, had a strong focusing in on sound source and muffling the surrounding noise effect, it was of the best denseness. Also, the sheet of polypropylene we used was one side gloss (the inside), the other- matte (outside of the cone), which created a small, but noticeable difference in capturing sound. We created a pocket, attached to the cone, where the sound recorder would go, and designed a shock absorber and a handle for it. The last had to be introduced, because, without it the microphone would pick up the vibrations of it being touched. The shock absorber was two frames, made out of balsa wood (same as the handle) which had rubber bands stretched across it, in which the recorder could be laid. The effect of The Sound Hoover allowed the user to hear across a room filled with people, as well as cancelled out sound sources, to which the cone was not aimed, to an extent where the user could not hair a bystander talking, when not aimed at him.
Our final design, The Sound Hoover, was made out of light, transparent pink and grey plastic, polypropylene. It was the easiest to use, light and flexible, and, once the cone was made neatly, had a strong focusing in on sound source and muffling the surrounding noise effect, it was of the best denseness. Also, the sheet of polypropylene we used was one side gloss (the inside), the other- matte (outside of the cone), which created a small, but noticeable difference in capturing sound. We created a pocket, attached to the cone, where the sound recorder would go, and designed a shock absorber and a handle for it. The last had to be introduced, because, without it the microphone would pick up the vibrations of it being touched. The shock absorber was two frames, made out of balsa wood (same as the handle) which had rubber bands stretched across it, in which the recorder could be laid. The effect of The Sound Hoover allowed the user to hear across a room filled with people, as well as cancelled out sound sources, to which the cone was not aimed, to an extent where the user could not hair a bystander talking, when not aimed at him.
The main set of intellectual skills I take form this project is how to work creatively in a team. Raw, young ideas usually have a carriage of strong passion, as well as a lot of questions. These kinds of ides are hard to process for the own generator. Getting these ideas across to other, at this stage is challenging, telling someone how their idea could be improved or why would it not be applicable is even harder. In this kind of group work it was important to think similarly to how The Sound Hoover works, to know yourself, which ideas to focus and which block out, which impulses to promote, and which to ignore.