Back to the Futurecraft A little theme for wordpress, please recycle.

Here is the one-page summary of my project:

Laptop for Life

A brain dump of ideas for the movie:

The movie:

Two take away points for further work after the final presentation/review:
-how would people react to using the laptop in foreign ways in a public setting?
-how can the shape and form of the laptop be rethought to better fit how people use and interact with their computing in everyday life?

Taking apart laptops

View the Flickr slideshow to see the product autopsy of 3 laptops I received for free (off the reuse list at MIT). I dont want to bore you with too many pictures of the insides of a laptop. At the end are 2 laptops that have been given a black rubber foam as a screen (thanks Leo) and outfitted with various items.

The first is a Japanese themed one. A pocket knife to catch fish with, a sushi box to eat it, and postcards to remind you of Japan. The other is one for a student, with various elements to help you survive the day.

I wasnt able to do so for the project, but it would be interesting to see people’s reaction to it in lecture or at Starbucks or any other public place.

Comments on taking apart the laptops
Who knows how many chemicals I exposed myself to in taking apart the laptops? It was a lot of fun and a challenge to figure out how to take apart each of the thinkpads. Each had its own tricks to unlock the next layer of the laptop. It was also interesting to see the different ways the two halves of the laptop were hinged. I overestimated the amount of usable space in the laptop without destroying the structure in the bottom half. Usually, the keyboard, computer chips, etc. are there to provide the support, but when you take it out, you need to rely on the various posts and bolts to keep the structure strong.

References/inspiration, among many sources:

Design Noir and Hertzian Space, Dunne and Raby, as mentioned in previous post.

Reading John Maeda’s The Laws of Simplicity (no, not just because he is a reviewer tomorrow. I read this book a year ago)

From the Digital Media Class at the University of the Arts in Berlin, a series entitled “Analog Laptop Extension”.

Handout, video, photos of taken apart laptops soon to come, after the final presentation.

Detechnologizing. Form (sort of).

Core77, interview with Donald Norman

“The DIY Future: What Happens When Everyone Is A Designer?”

Make a Macbook look-a-like (laptop) that has stationary goods inside to help manage notes, to-do lists, etc. throughout the day (portable desktop)

This will question the use of technology in everyday student life. Sure, you might need your laptop to do solid modeling or run some simulations, but how necessary is it for more mundane, trivial tasks? Also, what sort of reactions does the form and appearance of a laptop evoke? In class, some professors prohibit the use of laptops because it implies that you aren’t paying attention.

After various uses of this object, an infomercial/documentary will be made.

Link to Proposal

NY Times article featuring DIY project that was mentioned in class

http://www.adafruit.com/

For this week’s assignment, please refer to Paulina’s blog for what we did.

I’ve been doing some additional reading for this class, to start thinking about my final project, hopefully relating to my graduate research. I am planning to study the role and behavior of people in the process of product design. This can refer to the designers/engineers or the users for whom the products are being made. This class has been a great source of information and inspiration in areas I wouldn’t get through traditional design engineering.

In Hertzian Tales, Anthony Dunne, from the Royal College of Art, explores the idea of using electronic objects and products to draw out behavior and possibilities that are not normally afforded. It is not the purely functional electronics nor the purely visual and abstract art.

“The designer becomes an applied conceptual artist, socializing art practice by moving it into a larger and more accessible context while retaining its potential to provoke people to reflect on the way electronic products shape their experience of everyday life.” (Ch.5, “Real Fiction”)

In Shaping Things, Bruce Sterling talks about how the notion of the created object has changed over time. This goes along well with our talks on the notion of green design and upcycling.

At the end, he describes three options of technology to move towards:
1. “materials and processes are biodegradable, so it’s an auto-recycling technology”
2. “artifacts deliberately built to outlast the passage of time”
3. “full documented, trackable, searchable technology … when its time inevitably comes, it would hve the grace and power to turn itself in at the gates of the junkyard and suffer itself to be mindfully pulled apart” (this is what he describes in the book)

(Get your hands on a copy of the book. At the very least, it has interesting layout and book design.)

I looked around my room for something which would otherwise be thrown away, either in trash, or “recycled.” Then I remembered how those cheap Bic pens often ran out of ink, prompting me to just throw it away in the trash. Perhaps the plastic would be “recycled” but who knows? The tube itself is a decently sturdy component. Maybe I could find a new way to use it.

I also had some eye hooks laying around. I punched (with a push pin) two holes on opposite sides of the tube. It happened to be an appropriate hole for the eye hook, allowing me to thread by hand.

With this, I made a very lo-tech grocery bag holder. Yes, it can only hold two bags. I’m also not sure what the capacity is. Some of the products below, priced between $2.79-6.95, claim 50 lbs capacities.

One Trip Grip Grocery Bag Holder
The Grabby
EZ Carry

Feel free to improve this design (using the tubes as a bag holder) or find some other nifty way to upcycle!

update
It was pointed out in class that perhaps this is not upcycling, but just another form of recycling. Good call on that. It shows how it’s so difficult to shift mindsets about the way we treat materials. How would a pen tube be redesigned if we knew that it would be used for a new purpose once the ink ran out? Of course, you can buy pen refills, but that isn’t part of the normal practice. I am too lazy to do so. If there is a built in “second-life” to the pen tube, that would be great.

In my manufacturing class, we talked about an alternative way of soda can forming that a Japanese company created. Here, the manufacturing process itself is fundamentally different from traditional processes and automatically, the ecological footprint of making soda cans is reduced.

Japanese packaging manufacturer, Toyo Seikan, about how they reduce effect on the environment via a novel way of can production, called TULC (Toyo ULtimate Can).

National Science Foundation & Department of Energy study on Assessment of Environmentally Benign Manufacturing Technologies
pp.207-209 of the report highlights the Japanese means of manufacturing.

Online demos on how cans are drawn normally:

Ball Packaging Europe

aluMATTER: Deep Drawing Process

I found this link about wasted food. I’ll read up on this and post any interesting facts for Wednesday. I always wondered as a middle schooler whether all the extra food in the cafeteria was just thrown away.

Wasted Food | a look at how America squanders half its food