Nathalie's Design Blog

Phew, it’s been too long of a break and I have a lot of updating to do!  It’s amazing that we’re only two weeks into the winter quarter and I already feel like I have an overwhelming backlog of fun project stories.  So many, in fact, that I’ll need to catch up on them in short bursts.  I’ll start somewhere and generally forgo chronology in favor of sharing them in the order I find most interesting.  Happy catching up!

First off, say hello to my Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability class.  Now say hello to it five times fast.  Now never do it again because moving forward, I’ll simply refer to it as “Extreme”.  I find the label both short and appropriate.  I’m sure you will too.

At its core, the class deals with designing low cost solutions for the developing world.  Prior projects have included a $25 incubator for babies in Nepal, more durable mitads in Ethiopia (anyone who has enjoyed injera has benefited from these), and a variety of irrigation and food processing solutions.  This year, we’re lucky enough to be working with partners in India, Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Ethiopia, and Kenya.  Lots of specifics to come on that in future posts.

To kick off the class and to start to get to know each other during the first week, we were asked to rapidly prototype a solution which would Capture a Monsoon!  “Where would you find a monsoon in Northern California?” you might ask.  Well, we had trouble with that too, so we settled for two sprinkler heads attached to garden hoses.  Our challenge: Armed with $20 (and anything you can find lying around), construct a device which will capture the most “rain water” in a 5 minute period.  The playing field is 20′ x 20′.  You have 3 days.

We started off with a little prototyping... and it worked!

Happy with the results, we created a full size version, put our game faces on, and headed out.

The results on game day were both clever and amusing…

Some were large (this one was ours)

Some were colorful

Some resembled giant utters

And others were full of spirit

In the end, our team didn’t do particularly well, but we had a ton of fun and we learned a lot.  We managed to score the “The Monsoon Project is not the Monsoon Project without a hole being dug in Jim’s Backyard” paper plate award for our valiant efforts.  No backyards, particularly those belonging to professors, were permanently harmed in the making of our device.  It’s possible some grass will take a little time to regrow, though.

Having successfully completed our first design project and having subsequently dried off from the glorious sogginess of the experience, we’ve since set out to shadow the Carpentry staff that keeps Stanford ticking.  Hopefully we’ll be able to use our observations to help improve their workday.  More on that in a future installment…

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