Tag: Affordability

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Finding Challenges, Defining Opportunities

Though we faced freezing weather that blocked the class from meeting in person, it did not stop us from continuing to explore the inspirations that we encountered the past week. With the representatives of the Milestone Studio Labs on a video conference with the class, we continued to brainstorm as a team regarding several ideas that we thought would improve someone else’s quality of life. From the stories that our mentors shared, we realized the significance of affordability and accessibility, which is why we decided that those two factors will be the center of our design. Whatever it was that we were designing, we wanted to ensure that it would be accessible to the people who we were designing for.

With that in mind, my team and I came up with three ideas that we possibly would want to explore further throughout the semester:

  1. Snow/sand tracks for wheelchairs
  2. DIY wheelchair
  3. Shock-absorbing wheelchair

These ideas were inspired by the mentors and the stories that they shared last week. Although with their experience and knowledge, they are able to find ways to get around these problems, we wanted to make the process easier for them. As our professor emphasized, we were not trying to solve their problems. We wanted to help with improving the process and making it easier.

Example of a wheelchair sand track (source)
Example of a shock-absorbing wheelchair (source)

When we shared these ideas with the representatives of Milestone Studio Labs, they were very supportive, providing constructive feedbacks that raised our confidence. However, what I found to be even more helpful came after that. They pushed us, as a team, to identify an opportunity that we wanted to explore and design for. That is when I realized that without having a clear goal, the opportunity that we are pursuing after, we would not be able to design an effective product. I was ready to jump into designing a product when we haven’t even defined clearly the opportunity that we were hoping to address with the idea.

To identify an opportunity that we wanted to explore as a team, we went back to our core factors: accessibility and affordability. That is ultimately what we really wanted to provide for the people in need of a wheelchair. For this reason, we decided to explore the DIY wheelchair idea further. We wanted the users to be able to customize and replace the parts of a wheelchair as necessary. However, we also recognize the challenge with this idea. With the time and resources allotted to us, we probably will not be able to create a whole DIY wheelchair, which is why we are looking to begin with a part of a wheelchair that commonly requires a replacement. To identify such a part, we will need to do more research and talk with our mentors to gain an understanding, but now that we have the opportunity that we want to explore clearly defined, I am looking forward to where the design will lead to.

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Finding Creative Confidence and Inspiration

Finding Creative Confidence

One of my biggest concerns of taking the Digital Making Course is my ability to be creative. There is so much fuss around the world about needing to be innovative; about how we should be changing the world. However, I never truly believed that I have the ability to leave such an impact through a creative idea. This lack of confidence caused me to feel nervous about the course. Yes, I wanted to learn about the overall process of designing a product. Yes, I wanted to learn how to use computer-aided design (CAD) software. Yes, I wanted to learn how to use a 3D printer and successfully be able to print an object. But I wanted to do more. With the help of the mentors, the professor, and the fellow students, I wanted to design a product that will bring a positive impact on someone else’s life. Yet, how am I supposed to do that when I do not even believe in my ability to do so?

Thankfully, the course began with learning about different mindsets necessary to be a successful designer, one of which was “Creative Confidence.” The concept of this mindset is that a designer needs to believe in oneself’s ability to have big ideas and act on them. Throughout the journey of designing, there will be many ambiguity and failure, but that doesn’t mean I should give up. I just need to continue to explore different ideas and learn from the failures. It may be easier said than done, but learning about such mindsets allowed me to be less nervous and be more excited about the journey.

Finding Inspiration

With my upgraded mindsets, I was eager to meet the mentors and learn about their stories. I was ready to be inspired. The meeting began with Adam, who showed the class around the Disability Resources & Educational Services (DRES) facility.

At DRES facility, you can find a wall of Paralympians who have competed in wheelchair racing.

It was amazing to see the training equipment that is used, a timeline of racing wheelchairs showing the evolution hanging from the ceiling, and a workshop where innovative ideas to help the athletes come to a reality. Along the tour, we were introduced to Ariel, who shared her story of 3D printing the wheelchair racing gloves and distributing them around the world at a more affordable price for the customers. Afterward, we were introduced to Ryan, Jenna, and Ron, who openly shared about their experiences with wheelchairs, prosthetic legs, and meeting others with similar experiences.

Even before meeting them, I knew that I would gain inspiration from them. But they surpassed my expectations. I wasn’t aware how much of an inspiration they would provide. I felt that every single experience that they shared were valuable, leaving me frantically taking notes throughout the whole session. One of the most important points that were brought up during the conversation was the problem of affordability. It is mostly not the technology or the idea that is lacking in today’s word, but it is more so that these innovative products are not really affordable right now to the majority of the people who they are created for.

From the conversation, I was able to immediately come up with several ideas that I would like to explore down the road. Not only did it raise my eagerness to dive into the project, but it also raised my confidence. Unlike my worry before, I was already developing multiple ideas, demonstrating that I am more creative than I think.

The conversation also changed my perspective about innovation. It’s not about changing the world. Rather, it’s about improving someone else’s world. Even if it makes a difference in a few people’s lives, that is completely fine. As long as you design for the people and create an idea or a product for them to improve an aspect of their lives, you are an innovator. After all, isn’t that what human-centered design is all about?

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If It’s Not Broke, Use It To Create Something New

Walking the same path I’ve anxiously trudged many a time before, I felt a little bit disappointed. I had signed up for this digital making course to learn new things and find ways to stay curious in my field. Yet, everything we had done so far was so familiar to me: the slight sweat building up from the far walk to the DRES testing center, the awkward stillness of its lobby, and quickly redirected glances to avoid eye contact with the strangers you’ve been thrown together with in the class; all of this was familiar. What was unfamiliar was our descent from the first floor to the wheelchair sports training room and the brief retelling of the history of wheelchair sports told to us by our mentor, Adam. What was unfamiliar was learning about how someone who had taken the same class as us mere years ago now had a multinational company whose product had made a significant impact on sports technology. It was incredible learning each individual mentor’s story and the way they made the most out of what they had, using existing technology in unique ways to not just make a profit, but make an impact. Hearing about Jenna and Ron’s struggle to become an athlete, I couldn’t help but relate to the yearning they experienced, having had to stop my own sport, track, due to chronic shin splints.

An idea for using track spikes and rubber soles to create a lighter shoe with traction came from Jenna’s trouble with the black ice on campus.

This is all to say that the whole experience of interviewing experts with experience in disability related products was an especially empathetic and inspiring experience for me. Throughout the course of the interviews, their emphasis on affordability and accessibility inspired many ideas in me to help solve not only problems they brought up about physical disabilities but also problems that my friends and I – who have mental disabilities – experience daily. Given the stigma against such disabilities, the budget constraints of helpful projects tend to be lacking; what really sparked my brain in the interview was all the ways that the experts we talked to innovated creatively through utilizing existing objects and ideas to create solutions to completely unrelated problems. As a business major interested in consulting, this emphasis in cost effective innovative solutions is a particularly interesting mentality that I will carry with me into future problem-solving situations. I had been thinking of innovation in terms of creating new things completely from scratch, but moving forward, I will be keeping the ideal of adapting old inventions to newer and more modern, salient products.