6 Ideas-Alvaro


As a product designer I am very interested in the intersection of both Technology an objects. for my 6 ideas I gravitated into 6 domains:

Rapid Prototyping: New advances in technology, make the presence of RP machines ubiquitous to designers, artist and crafters. This only tell us the no matter what the change in the manufacture of consumer goods is, it likely be more towards the end user. A lot of things come out of this possibility: what will be the role of the designer, how will the factory be transformed and so on.

Learning Tools: My interest in learning tools is basically the intention of making technology more available to the people. Projects like Little bits*, Logic Blocks* and more worked and are working on the idea of teaching and open the source for programing with hardware technology.

Craft: The idea of craft in my domain is the connection of R.T.A (ready  to assemble objects) and technology, articles like the New Factory from Ceramics Monthly by Andy Brayman. talk about the transformation of craft as we know it now, to a more industrial process in which consumer products will be customized, changed or designed by the end user.

Toys: This is an area that interest me as the fun aspect of te field lets the exploration and experimentation be more digestible. Also the connection to the rest of the domains is easier in toy design.

Critical Design: Critical design is an area that have interested me since I started the program. Making the connection with real consumer products yet allowing myself to revise and comment on specific topics is quite interesting.

Product Design: This will be the domain that covers that connects the rest and in which all the ideas find matches.

SO.. THE IDEAS

R.T.A DECORATIVE OBJECTS AND TECHNOLOGY

Ready To Assemble furniture became really popular in Europa after World War Two. ChipBoard, MDF and other materials where created to achieve the customization, price and fabrication of modules that would be assembled by the end user. In America became really popular in the 80s and as we all know IKEA is the leading store for these goods.

But ready to assemble objects can be taken as craft and toys that need to be connected by the customer or the crafter, so the list of consumer products that can be connected to this idea is endless. Technology hasnt really be used in this type of objects too much (dont want to say at all because I am not sure yet). My interest is to find the relation and possibility to include echnology into this products, how will a smart lamp that changes color with the voice be assemble by the user. will the company hide the tech parts in a container and end of the story? What about buttons, the logic behind the connections etc…

DESIGN IT YOURSELF STUDIO

Not sure how to build this or the shape of the idea. But companies like Shapeways let customers modified and even design their own products. This idea is related to software like processing or OpenFrameworks in which the code is open source and customization as open source is the main idea. How about designing objects, making 3d models for products that can be sent to companies like shapeways or other rapid prototyping sources. sharing this objects and letting people customize them.

INFLUENCING MACHINE

Toys inspired by the article written by Victor Tausk On the Origin of the “Influencing Machine” in Schizophrenia

WIRELESS PAPER TOYS

Continuing with XBee “Fun”  this idea lets kids play with paper to create wireless toys: ” you could have a new car every day by just following the patterns to create a new one”

THE PERFECT CONTAINER

How about teaching physical computing students, artist and crafters how to make containers for their arduino projects.

WOODEN SMART TOYS

When visiting the Toy Fair I kept asking Why there were no smart (techy) wooden toys, that would be amazing, ,,, everything that mixes the new and the old, craft and high tech, in other words eclectic objects are very exciting to me. so how about designing “lego wooden parts” that kids can assemble and create different outputs.

Here is my VEN Diagram

I have some precedence and inspiration for my idea in my blog