PSS - peer comment

Huan, Xie - Trip Planner Rental System for Tourists
http://z3326626.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/pss-design-trip-planner-rental-system.html?showComment=1350295618900#c264368879040880278

Chieh Min, Lee - Rebat; battery recycling PSS
http://leechiehmin.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/rebat-battery-recycling-pss.html

Benjamin, Chan - PSS project - G.E.R Glass Reverse Vending Machine
http://bjcyc.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/pss-project-ger-glass-reverse-vending.html

Frankie, Ho - GPS Bike System Rationale
http://frankie-industrial-design.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/gps-bike-system-rationale.html

Siting Lin - Btob Cloth
http://linst90.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/often-we-go-to-shops-tobuy-things-we.html?showComment=1350300588204#c5885439792826153209

Dish vending machine & reverse vending machine

I want to design a dish vending machine and reverse vending machine as well as reusable dish for Snack Street in Beijing.

From the map you can see there is many snack streets in Beijing. The red dots are just some biggest ones. There are just some biggest snack streets in Beijing. Especially, the most famous snack street, Wangfujing street. In 2011, The amount of people who want to go to Wangfujing street reached 40 thousands to 50 thousands a day. During holiday, the amount of people will increase to 100 thousands people a day. This result large of disposable dishes and food waste are produced everyday, it is about 18 tons. Due to the lack of recycling technology, Beijing government couldn't find the best way to treat the 18 tons of garbage or recycle them properly, therefore, most of the garbage are directly sent to the landfill. If we don't reduce the disposable dishes usage, more and more used dishes will send to landfill. Also, because there are too many people go to snack streets which also bother the cleaner, as they need to keep working for more than 20 hours a day in order to clean all the dishes and food waste. So, I suggest to use reusable dish instead of disposable one.

Through finding information from the Internet, I found an article which is called An evaluation of energy consumption. This article use scientific method to compare the energy consumption between disposable and reusable dish. This article also shows that when the number of serving use more than one hundred times, two energy consumption is almost the same. Therefore, reusable dish is actually good for environment.

In Sydney, there are many similar PSS exist in the market, for example food court in Chinatown and TGV. They use reusable dish to serve customers. They clean the reusable dishes after customers finish eating. However, if large number of people come to eat. The small space will become crowd. The cleaner won't be able to move around with their trolley to collect and clean all the dishes and food waste. This is what happening to many biggest snack street in Beijing.

So, this PSS is what I want to design for Beijing Wangfujing. The tourists come to the entrance of Wangfujing Snack Street, and use 10yuan to get a dish and ticket to enter snack street from dish vending machine, and then use the dish to eat at snack street. After finish eating, they are required to bring the dish back to reverse vending machine, and discard the unwanted food to bin, return the dish and ticket to the machine. The machine will then give back their 5yuan.

The target market is for tourists and local people . By using this service, I want people to be able to change their behaviour, to use reusable dish and to reduce the use of disposable plates and pay attention to the environment.

Reflection On Who Killed The Electrical Car

Through watching the video who killed the electrical car, I realize the problem is not about the technology, is about the benefits of some people. These people who have more power than many of other people. They want to get more money for themselves instead of saving the environment to give a nice and clean living environment for the majority of people.

In this video, there is a lot of interviews on the electrical car to reveal that the electrical car is not worse than petrol car, sometimes the electrical car is faster and better than petrol car. Using the electrical car also have a lot of benefits, such as zero pollution, easy to recharge, and electricity is cheaper than the current fuel price.

The environment is now facing many serious issues, such as global warming, air pollution etc.  Also, because the fuel has been consumed a lot, so the oil industry increase the price of fuel to make profits. More people realize they spend more and more money on petrol and causing more and more pollution to the environment, so they choose not to use their own petrol car or choose hybrid car to help save the environment as well as their money. At the end, the majority of people will want the electrical car or other green products to return to the market in order to fight with the selfish people who only concern about their own profits.

Cormack Project Peer Comments

Huan Xie:
http://z3326626.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/cormack-leg-eleven-packaging-design.html

Benjamin Chan:
http://bjcyc.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/normal.html

Frankie Ho:
http://frankie-industrial-design.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/project-1-cormack.html

Cindy Lin:
http://linst90.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/cereal-is-healthy-choicefor-breakfast.html?showComment=1347294871211#c6589784987319781619

Helen Holman:
http://helenholman.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/sunscreen-packaging-final-design.html?showComment=1347294140986#c3384928175878700486

Project 1: Cormack - Milk Powder Can

Problems:

Massive and heavy milk powder can is very difficult for young children to use because their hands are small and they can’t hold the large can well which will lead to a problem - the milk powder can fall on the ground and the milk powder might spill out. The worst situation is the can will hurt their hands and feet. Furthermore, the opening of the can is quiet sharp, children might stuck their hands in the can and get hurt. Sometimes, those problems can also happen to parents.

Solution:

In order to prevent this happen, I design a small size milk powder can for young children between 6-12 years old to use. The size will fit into their hands. So they can use it easily without parent's help. Also, I design a small opening for the can. The can only give a small amount of milk powder (15g) each time, which will make 100ml of milk. One glass is 200ml, so only two shots are needed. This is simple method for children to make their own milk as the can will help them control the right amount of milk powder add into one glass.

Materials:

The whole body is made by PP(polypropylene). The reason for choosing PP is because PP is one of the most suitable material for packaging, and it is one of the easiest material to recycle. Apart from PP, another material used for the can is rubber. A flexible rubber lid is connected to the can. Choosing rubber to make lid is because the flexibility of rubber, so the lid can be pulled and twisted. Using rubber lid is also to prevent the air go into the milk powder and to prevent children lose the lid when they go out for camping or travel.

Product Diassembly Workshop

Today, we disassemble a Breville microwave in the class. This microwave is complicated to disassemble because there are about 100 screws inside the microwave, and they need different types of screwdriver to unscrew them. Also, Some parts can not be opened as the parts are glue together. Our group spent almost a hour to disassemble the microwave.

Through doing this exercise, I now know how hard is to design a product like this, every component need to think and design so the application is suitable and safe for many people to use.

Reflection of The 11th Hour

The film I watched is called The 11th Hour which talks about how human beings impact on the earth. The narrator of the film is Leonard DiCaprio who has been produced two shots, Global Warming and Water Planet a couple of years ago. Many media dicussed the global warming and how it happened and how it effected our earth. But we don't pay attention or we don't know how serious the problem is. Now, the film The 11th Hour talked about the issue in a film and in a narrative format, which attracts me attention and shows me some basic ideas about the global warming. 50 experts, scientists, thinkers, and leaders are interviewed in the film. They state the most serious issues the earth is facing now, and how we can solve these problems and save the earth.

After watching the whole film, I now know how much water a tree can store and how a tree can effect the earth significantly. Tree is the best friend of earth. It can solves many problems that happens to the earth especially global warming. However, many trees are cut down for producing human products, and many of these products can only be used once. Now, at least one human being needs to plant one tree so the environment can be balance. Otherwise, the deforestation will keep going faster and faster and the earth is soon becoming an non-suitable living environment for human beings as well as other creatures. As the narrator Leonard DiCaprio mentioned in the film: Global warming is not only the number one environmental challenge we face today, but one of the most important issues facing all of humanity.

The film also offers the solutions how we can solve the problems in political, economical and technological way. Using economical method will be like increasing the tax of petrol to force people use public transportation rather than driving their own car to work, which will then decrease the amount of carbon dioxide to be released into atmosphere. Using green technology is also one of the best way to solve the environmental issues, and this is one of the things that as a designer we need to consider how we can design something clean, efficient, and renewable. For instance, design a product that use solar energy instead of using petrol, or other non-renewable energy.

Reflection for packaging

How it is made

After watching how different materials are made, I know the advantages and disadvantages of different materials. Therefore, I get a better understanding of how to choose the materials wisely for my design.

The first video I watched is aluminum. Aluminum is now used in making drinks container because it is light weight and recyclable. The manufacuture will send a large long sheet into a machine. The machine will cut the sheet into a round sheet then press it into a cup. The next step is to put the cup into a draw iron body maker which will form the body of the can. Then the body of can will be washed by 6 stages cleaning washer and they will be ready to print the label. Inside the can, a chemical will be added to prevent the can be eatern by acid drinks.

Cardboard boxes is another material that is introduced in the videos. The weight of the paper used in making card board boxes are depending on the size of the boxes. The structure of the cardboard boxes is formed by three parts, which are two sheets of paper - flute, and the middle part - liner. These three parts form what is called corrugate board. The corrugate board will be trimmed in the machine, and then two folding machines will fold them together. Afterwards, the colors will be applied on the card board. At the end, the workers will check the boxes before packaging the product into the cardboard.

Glass bottles is one of the materials that use less energy than plastic and metal. Glass bottles are made by silicon sand, soda, and 10% of lime stone in order to make the glass durable. All these materials will be mixed together and melted in a container for 4 days. Then the melted glass will go through a cutting machine and eventually to a mold. Blowing machine will immediately blow the glass to form the shape.

Tetrapak container is now used a lot in packaging drinks and foods because tetrapak can keep the drink and food fresh for one year without fridge . It is formed by three different materials which are plastic, paperboard, and foyer. The container can be printed up to 6 colors on the surface. The worker will check the quality of printings before processing to next steps, squeezing all the papers together, then the tetrapak will be filled with product and sealed.

Giving packaging a new life

Recycling the packaging can save huge amount of waste materials and turn them into new products again. Watching these videos, I learned different processes of recycling used materials. 

Aluminum is melted in the machine, then formed a long sheet again to be re-used in manufacture. Glass is sorted out by an electronic device which is controlled by a computer. The computer can determine what impurities have to be removed, then the device will immediately blow out the impurities. After cleaning process, the recycled glass is now ready to be melted with soda lime and sand. Recycling glass can save approximate 2.7 million tones of waste glass each year. Paper is similar to aluminum and glass. Any impurities and printing will be removed before press, drain and dry the used paper into new sheet of paper. Almost 60 to 70 percent of roll paper are made by recycle paper. In the 90s, plastics were not recycled, they were sent to landfilled. Now, because there are too many waste plastics have been disposed to ocean, and the biological chain is also influenced. Therefore, the scientists create an inspection system that helps recycle the plastic. The system can easily identify various types of plastics, and the system will send them to different places for cleaning and re-use. This new system increases the proportion of plastics to be recycled, and makes the recycle process easier.