Wordle Doodle

Generating word clouds... Reminds me of the song 'Castle on a Cloud'.

It's a really interesting site where you can insert a whole bunch of vocabularies (or tags in my case) and the program will just mix and mingle the words up like juice! I didn't play around much with the colours but basically that's my turn out!

Wordle http://www.wordle.net/

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My first second of fame!

I am on the faculty blog!
http://fbeunsw.wordpress.com/2009/06/15/melody-shiue-bachelor-of-industrial-design/

Big thanks to those who visited and or left a comment :D

Also my appearance model was selected to be displayed in the lab windows... This is a milestone in my design pre-career journey as I was never confident about my model-making skills.

There are definitely space for improvement in this design; considering manufacturing possibilities, form & function coherences, and one major point that was brought up during the presentation: the fact that the herbs are shaded from direct vertical sunlight. Although the hydroponic planters can be drawn out for photosynthesis exposure, but that would hamper movement in the environment?

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Ecotopia - The Next Step for Your Environmental Health

After a whole month and a half's social quarantine (including 2 sleepless nights at uni and 3 sacrificial declines to party invites) I have finally accomplished this sustainability project.

Here's my appearance model which took me 2.5 consecutive days - literally - to construct. Thank god I was given some credit for it when our lecturer requested to display it outside our lab.

Basically this vertical herb garden is an integrated development of a worm farm and hydroponic system to competently reduce convenience barriers and simultaneously improve environmental and personal well-being.

1) Worm Farm
Ÿ Reduce kitchen scraps
Ÿ Worm tea produced is an indefinite natural source of fertilizer providing adequate nutrients including nitrogen which is usually an external requirement
Ÿ Eliminates the need for extra composting (which produces undesirable odour)
Ÿ Natural repellent for aphids, spider mites, scale and white flies
Ÿ Help fight common diseases and fungal infections and other common pathogens without the use of toxic chemicals

2) Hydroponic Herb Garden
Ÿ No meddling with soil and dirt
Ÿ Grows faster and healthier than normal soil-based planters
Ÿ Avoids weeds and pests

3) Rainwater Reservoir
Ÿ Utilizes natural resource
Ÿ No need to check pH level or distill other sources of water
Ÿ Reduce leakage through pipe system

DESIGN OUTCOME:
Ÿ Consumes no electrical energy
Ÿ Provides fresh homemade culinary herbs for kitchen use
Ÿ Low maintenance
Ÿ Eliminates the risk of over-drowning the herbs
Ÿ Readily available nutrients
Ÿ The single vertical unit can act as one miniature herb garden or more can be added as a modular system on a bigger scale

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Project Two: Enabling Sustainability

Second major project for Studio 3A is about enabling sustainability within a community. Our focus area is the New College on campus.

First of all, here are my 3 concepts for infusing sustainable impact on New College:

QUICK SOLUTION

SLOW SOLUTION

CO-OP SOLUTION
Basically it's a dormitory overloaded with approx. 280 students from UNSW, with around 56 students on each floor, mixed genders.

Some concerns with their energy / water consumption: 24-hour access to cordial machines & refrigerated beverages, undercarpet heating that turns on at certain intervals during the winter days (for the whole building, even when students may not be inside the rooms), 24-hr air-conditioning of the computer room to keep the server cool, unregulated use of the $2 washing machines (2 on each floor, 4 floors in total), etc.

Basically my idea behind each concept is by providing visual and interactive communication within the environment so the students can be readily informed and behaviourally ameliorated towards a sustainable norm.

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MDG Final Presentation

Havn't been able to upload my progress, but here's my final presentation posters:

DESIGN SOLUTIONS
1. A redesign of an existing medical apparatus to make it more affordable and accessible for Traditional Birth Attendants (TBA) and skilled midwives.

2. Extend the postnatal survival time by reducing PPH; and even to allow transportation time of patient to the nearest hospital.

3. Distribute and promote the use of contraceptive devices, e.g. condoms within the slum communities, in conjunction with health organizations and the government.

4. Incorporate a sterilization system with local hospitals for reuse of the pump components.

5. The bellow is calculated to contain approx. 120ml per segment. The adoption of the bellow structure is to allow observation between inflations whether bleeding has stopped or not.

6. The top also allows ergonomic maneuver to vacuum out and retrieve the saline inside the intrauterine condom.

TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS

1. Saline liquid used in hospitals can be concocted domestically by the midwife herself [0.9% salt + 99.1% boiled water = saline liquid].

2. Based on substantial experiments, the combination of a filled condom and catheter is effective in reducing PPH. Hence the midwife is only required to purchase the pump pack which accomplishes both the inflating and deflating tasks of the saline solution, whereas in hospitals the tasks are done by separate methods.

3. If in need of replacement of components, the inflation needle and condom sizes are designed to be compatible against the average existing products. The catheter can even be replaced with a 15 French (=5mm) medical catheter donated by hospitals.

4. Materials: HDPE for the pump component, medical-grade PU for the catheter.

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Millenium Development Goals Project - 2009!

It's back to uni! And feeling ashamed at myself for total negligence of this blog during the past 4 months I thought I'd upload my first concepts of the new semester.

Our new assignment is basically designing for poverty... and our team is focusing on reducing maternal mortality in Kenya.

As we all figured out after doing our research... that it's really the lack of education, funding, and most importantly ATTENTION from the local governments that's exacerbating the poverty-stricken situation. You can't really design a product to resolve the poor circumstances in the long term, it's really up to whether the government wishes to invest into ameliorating the slums...

Anyhow, here are my 3 ocncepts. My aim is to lessen the stress these pregnant mothers are already having i.e. fatigue from inevitable workload, in order to provide some sort of comfort during work, and at the same time reducing compression of the placenta which usually causes vaginal hemorrhage (one of the maternal death agents).

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