Contemporary designs and analysis

What design consists of?

A good design fulfills its purpose than focusing more on aesthatic value. It also has a new innovative design which does not existed before. Good design uses materials in most effective ways to solve existing problems. Using fewer resources is the key for good contemporary design. Good design delivers a positive emotional impact on society and has intrinsic value.(Topdesignmag.com, 2010)

 

Design Solution:

LED Snowboard

 Figure 1: LED snowboard

This LED snowboard is designed by 3 Enomoto, a Japanese company. This snowboard consists of  24 bit full colour spectrum and motion controlled. Adding aesthetic value to the snowboard makes the snowboards more interesting in design of it. It makes the look more appealing and attractive to the eyes. Apart from it, it also can be used in night time and become the light for the passionate people who likes to do it at night. It also has bluetooth attached to it which can be connected to music player, and the light will change according to the sound beats. (Transworld snowboarding, 2017)

Figure 2:  LED snowboard

 The light sequence will be changed according to the motion of the snowboards as it sensed by motion senser installed to it. This is great because the rider will know when he or she is making mistake. 

Materials:

 

Features:

• 2 durable, flexible, 1m long LED strips with 24 LEDs each
• Controller includes 19 lighting modes consisting of chases, strobes, & acceleration (motion) response
• Simple single-button controller controls all functions
• Goes to sleep without movement to save battery power & wakes up automatically
• Mounts with very strong, but removable, adhesive tape
• Binding spacers to protect LED strips
• 8 hrs continuous use w/ long-life rechargeable battery
• Weight: 1.25 lbs w/ marginal effect on ride
• Waterproof

The light strips and LED controller are binded to the snowboard by high-bonding 3M VHB adhesive tape. The LED snowboard system adds safety since it can be seen clearly at night and reduces the possibility of collision on the slope.  The disadvantage can be running out of battery after 8 hours and recharging of it. Other than that, the safety cannot be reassured if the whole snowboard crushed during accident and the rider get into serious injury.

For further improvement, GPS can be attached to the microcomputer, so that when the snowboard rider got crushed in the avalanche, the GPS can be tracked and the rider can be rescued. Other than that, temperature sensor can be attached to detect the temperature through the light colour. In future, the knowledge of levitation of the board can be introduced upon technology discovering so that people can fly on snow. It is not impossible.

Engineering Design process 

Engineering was defined as the application of practical and scientific knowledge to the solving of a problem through the use of a methodical process. The engineering design process is a series of steps that engineers follow when they are trying to solve a problem and design a solution for something; it is a methodical approach to problem solving. (Malakye, 2004).

Step 1 – UNDERSTAND – Define the Problem
Step 2 – EXPLORE – Do Background Research
Step 3 – DEFINE – Determine Solution Specifications
Step 4 – IDEATE – Generate Concept Solutions
Step 5 – PROTOTYPE – Learn How Your Concepts Work
Step 6 – CHOOSE – Determine a Final Concept
Step 7 – REFINE – Do Detailed Design
Step 8 – PRESENT – Get Feedback and Approval
Step 9 – IMPLEMENT – Implement the Detailed Solution
Step 10 – TEST – Does the Solution Work?
Step 11 – ITERATE

From this activity, the researcher learned about design process and design solution.

Reference:

  Bogdan, 2010, What Constitutes Good design?, Topdesignmag.com, accessed on 20 April 2017, url: www.topdesignmag.com/what-constitutes-good-design/

Transworld Snowboarding, 2017, Everything you need to know about LED snowboarding, The Ethusiast Network, accessed on 20 April 2017, url: http://snowboarding.transworld.net/gear/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-led-snowboard/#GA0gL0wzhSF6ft5f.97

VEX Robotic, 2015, What is the Engineering Design Process, curriculum,VEX Robotic Inc, accessed on 20 April 2017, url: http://curriculum.vexrobotics.com/curriculum/intro-to-engineering/what-is-the-engineering-design-process