Search results matching tag 'NUSID'

we are moving

AKIYC — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 02:15:00 GMT

I have setup a new blog at http://blog.nus.edu.sg/nusid/.

Annoucement of Branuprize 2009

AKIYC — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 05:53:00 GMT

Closing date: January 31, 2009

Theme: "Envision conscious design!"

This internationally recognised design competition is open to young industrial designers who are still studying or who have graduated within the last two years.

In the coming days, some thousands sets of competition documentation will be sent out to design schools, universities and design studios all over the world.

Current industrial design students as well as recent graduates have until January 31, 2009 to submit their product concepts to Braun (the participation is free of charge).

The total prize money amounts to EUR 36,000. The winner of the BraunPrize will receive EUR 12,000 in prize money and a (paid) six-month internship in the Design Department at Braun. The other finalists will each receive a prize of EUR 5,000. The remaining prize money will be distributed in the form of special recognition awards at the discretion of the jury.

Our ID student, Donn Koh's Leapfrog was selected as the grand winner of the 2007 competition and the information is as follows:

LeapFrog, winner
This product is a new type of walker for childrens uffering from cerebral polio or spina bifida.

‘LeapFrog’ encourages and supports children with impaired mobility to rise from a sedentary position, allows them to practice walking and attaining balance as well as allowing for short sedentary breaks. The adjustment between the various positions, (i.e. sitting, standing and walking) takes place in an automatic way and responds to the intention and movement of the child. In addition, ‘LeapFrog’ stops moving automatically when the child assumes a sedentary position. This feature prevents crashing and sliding when sitting and therefore prevents the child from acquiring erroneous movement patterns. The mechanism for the support when in a standing position can be set according to weight and therefore can be adjusted according to the child’s development.

‘LeapFrog’ not only supports the physical development, but also the independence and self-confidence of the child. It reinterprets a ‘painfully’ medical appearance with a product that appears to be caring and playful.

Finding of the Jury:
This design product is the result of thorough user research and offers a complex yet practical solution to different forms of physical disability. The jury was impressed by the product’s adaptability to different disabilities, the way it adjusts to an individual user’s unique challenges and its effectiveness as a form of physical therapy that motivates improvement and self-worth.

For more information about the competition, please refer to http://www.braunprize.com/international/braunprize_2.html

Results of 4th NextGen PC Design Competition

AKIYC — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 03:20:00 GMT

The Fourth Next-Gen PC Design Competition, orginised by Microsoft and endorsed by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) and the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID), throws down the gauntlet to budding industrial designers and seasoned professionals working in the field worldwide to apply their ingenuity, design prowess and creative flair and vision to the task of not merely give existing computing form factors a superficial makeover, but fundamentally rethinking the PC as we know it from the ground up.

This year’s competition issued an open call to entrants to dream up futuristic PC designs that give a new lease of life to people’s passions, such as travelling, music or photography. Contestants were challenged to come up with groundbreaking designs, not only featuring eye-catching aesthetics, but melding cutting-edge hardware with the latest software toward empowering people to follow their passions.

It certainly captured the imagination of the design community. The competition fielded 120 submissions from 32 countries that were as diverse as the passions they were aimed at empowering.

The winner's works are shown below:

Napkin PC
1st Place Judges Award & Chairman’s Award Winner
Avery Holleman

The Napkin PC is a multi-user, multi-interface, modular computer designed for creative professionals to collaborate and bring their greatest ideas to life.

WITHUS
2nd Place Judges
Taeho Wang, Minjoong Kim

WITHUS is the computer helping a preschool children shape the right values and human relationship by driving them into playing and learning with multi human interactions. Existing computer environment plays important and useful roles in various areas such as education, work, entertainment, and communication. However, it prevents direct interactions between two human or human and society. It is because current PCs are replacing the past human activities which need real contacts among people. It makes more difficult for young children to grow as an adult with right value and personality.
WITHUS solves the above problems of current PC environment. A kid as a user is attracted to enjoy more various and interesting contents with their friends by physically connecting his/hers with friends’ WITHUSes. Various firsthand experiences and collaborative activities through WITHUS promote the kids to grow as a social being by learning cooperation and compromise.

Backpacker's Diary
3rd Place Judges Award & Public’s Choice Award Winner
Zhongren Zhang, Chun Yang

Backpacker's diary is a PC concept that integrate with the form of traditional book, the target user is the enthusiastic travelling fans. In this "book", different pages include different functions, like media recording, solar recharging and EL illuminant. The approach of reading a book takes the traditional way of operating computer, which encourage those backpackers to experience and share more about their trips.

Two students' works from our school (Industrial Design programme, National Univeristy of Singapore) were selected as the Finalists:

conceito
Finalist
huang xiaonan, Brian Lau

Digital painting PC for artists that allows:

1. flexible LCD screen can be carried around in the outdoors, and its translucency facilitates artiest to look through the screen to paint the sceneries.
2. digital pen interacts with LCD screen and the base. it has color sensing mechanism, gather color from real objects.
3. base is LED touch screen, showing color palette, and the pen can obtain color from the digital color palette.
4. the screen is scrolled up, and fixed to the supporting stand by using pen as the lock

INFO Live
Finalist
Brian Law Chuan Chai, Huang Xiao Nan

INFO Live is an data organizer for connected internet world. It is able to transfer data information to any hardware and person any moment in time of need. In addition, it has a powerful information update system that alerts user of incoming information, e.g. email, documents, photos , video & etc in terms of ionic representation.

For more information, please refer to http://www.nextgendesigncomp.com/Default.aspx

OPUS DESIGN AWARD 2008

AKIYC — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:04:00 GMT

Registration:
April 1, 2008 - June 30, 2008

Submission of Entries:
June 1, 2008 - July 31, 2008

"Expression of Time”

Eyewear design is a segment of contemporary expressions. Just as architecture, interior and fashion designs illustrate era, eyewear embraces various factors of trend in fashion, philosophy, and lifestyle of the time. “Deliberating today through the subject of eyewear” is comparable to searching significance in design.

For more information, please visit http://www.opus-award.com/en/index.html

Last year award went to NUS ID's alumna Mr. Joe Tan (AY04/05) and his work "blur" which is inspired by the photoshop "blur" tool often used to erase wrinkles in photos.

Results of Green Gadgets Design Competition 2008

AKIYC — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 14:00:00 GMT

The Greener Gadgets Design Competition took place during the month of February, 2008, as part of the Greener Gadgets Conference in New York City. Core77 challenged the global design community to design a "greener gadget"; to create innovative solutions addressing the issues of energy, carbon footprint, health and toxicity, new materials, product lifecycle, and social development.

EnerJar, a DIY power meter was honoured the winner of Grand Prize. The EnerJar is an easy-to-build, DIY device that accurately measures the power draw of electrical appliances. EnerJar helps users gain an understanding of power draw, investing them in the knowlege, and leading them to reduce their electricity use.

3 works form NUS ID student team, Cheong Yiang Ling, Cindy Liew, Lionel Wong and Joanne Lin, have been selected as Notable Entries.

Bottle of M http://www.core77.com/competitions/GreenerGadgets/projects/4619/

Dormio http://www.core77.com/competitions/GreenerGadgets/projects/4614/

Chicoolet http://www.core77.com/competitions/GreenerGadgets/projects/4658/

For more information, please refer to http://www.core77.com/competitions/GreenerGadgets/

results of dining in 2015

AKIYC — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 01:09:00 GMT

There were 4843 creative individuals and institutions from 98 countries participated in this competition which is orginised by designboom and 'MACEF international.

The ex equo first prizes are as follows:

name of design : leaf-shaped spoon
design by : Shuhei Senda from japan

leaf-shaped spoon 1
designer's own words:
This spoon makes us softly feel that we live to be given the blessings of nature. It is designed with the wish that we think a great regards of dining more and more as human's essential workings in the future

name of design : din-ink
design by : andrea cingoli + paolo emilio bellisario + cristian cellini + francesca fontana from italy

designer's own words:
Turn your favourite office tool from your desk in a common cutlery...this is din-ink. A set of pen caps, including a fork-cap, a knife-cap and a spoon-cap, that replaces the normal pen cap during lunch time! All caps are made by annually renewable resources, like natural starch and fibres, to be 100% biodegradable and atoxic, warranting the best alimentary use. Dispensing each set in a compostable packaging the whole set is designed to respect the environment. Now give your office ballpoint pen a good excuse to be gnawed by your teeth: use them for din-ink.

name of design : fragile
design by : Mey Kahn + Boaz Kahn from israel

---
designer's own words:
When was the last time you emphatically broke somthing? The ceramic salt and pepper shaker offers you the opportunity to do it! The product comes in one piece and by breaking it, you make it useful. Breaking is an experience of impulsive outburst, But this time is an act that builds rather than destroys. In a world of products whose shape is completely dictated by the designer, we enable the user to complete the design himself. The event of the breaking leaves its mark on the shaker and gives it its final, unique, one-of-a-kind appearance.

In addtion, I would like to showcase two shorlisted items contribuated from our almuni Yap Hock Heng and our 2nd year student, Tan Jun Yuan:

name of design : AG_Chopsticks
design by : hock heng yap from singapore

designer's own words:
In the past, royalties in the Korean kingdom uses silver(AG) chopsticks to test their food for poison. Although the presence of poison is not of much concern in our modern day society, there is however a growing awareness for the detection of harmful bacteria within our food. Hence the mounting interest in food science and the advances made in biosensors. A major breakthrough in this area of science is the use of chromatic conjugated polymer as a fast and simple way to detect harmful food bacteria like E.Coli and Salmonella. When the organic polymer comes into contact with these bacteria, the proteins within the bacteria will cause it to change colour. By incorporating the polymer within a pair of silver chopsticks, users are provided with a simple tool to test the freshness of their food. This will enable users to safeguard themselves from possible food poisoning and give themselves a piece of mind when dining. My design aims to update a traditional practice with present day technology, and make it relevant for dining in 2015.

name of design : nutcracker
design by : jun yuan tan from Singapore

designer's own words:
There are times when I’m confronted with an uncooperative nutcracker which does not crack nuts cleanly and efficiently, and places huge amounts of stress on the hand during operation. It is a painful experience to crack a nut, and this has prompted me to think of alternatives to cracking nuts in an elegant and delightful manner, allowing people to enjoy the process and also the aroma of a freshly cracked nut. Nutcracker! offers a fun and effortless alternative way to cracking a nut, transforming a mundane activity into something of an event. Bringing together people, friends and family, through its innovative fun and play, it is also safe and stress free, as cracking a nut only involves lifting of the weight and dropping it through the tube. Aluminum, stainless steel and acrylic are chosen because they are recyclable, and the natures of the materials offer stability and clarity. Where there are fresh nuts to be eaten, there will be the Nutcracker!

For more information, please visit: http://www.designboom.com/contest/winner.php?contest_pk=21

d-lab™ at Maison et Objet

AKIYC — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 06:25:00 GMT

Objects Around the Tablescape, the first collection of objects presented by d-lab™, will be exhibited at the Maison et Objet in Paris, France in January 2008.

d-lab™ is a commercial entity and a brand name created by the Design Incubation Centre, Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore. It aims to be a platform where DIC is able to communicate its research and findings in the form of products that are produced and distributed through commercial channels. Below are some selected works shown at the Masion et Object this year.

Idea of a Vase
W 360 x D 250 x H 45 mm

Description: set of 10 vase shaped blocks in frame
Materials: teak or nocture black Corian™
Design direction: Patrick Chia
Design: Design Incubation Centre

Stairway Paper Tray
W 360 x D 240 x H 50 mm

Description: paper tray to hold A4 sized paper
Materials: matt finished Corian®
Colours: white
Design direction: Patrick Chia
Design: Yong Jieyu

A Family of Short Legged Lights
W 250 x D 160 x H 370 mm
W 470 x D 100 x H 145 mm
W 320 x D 90 x H 90 mm

Description: set of 3 table lights
Materials: matt finished Corian® and teak
Colours: white/teak
Design direction: Patrick Chia
Design: Design Incubation Centre
Idea of a Vase
W 360 x D 250 x H 45 mm

Description: set of 10 vase shaped blocks in frame
Materials: teak or nocture black Corian™
Design direction: Patrick Chia
Design: Design Incubation Centre

A Long Fruit Bowl
W 790 x D 180 x H 90 mm

Description: a long centerpiece fruit bowl
Materials: matt finished Corian®
Colours: white, black
Design direction: Patrick Chia
Design: Dominic Poon, Tan Jun Yuan,
Liang Yanjie

For more information about Objects Around the Tablescape, please visit http://www.arch.nus.edu.sg/dic/recent-projects/objects-around-tablescape/index.html

For more information about DIC, please visit http://www.arch.nus.edu.sg/dic/

Leapfrog honoured red dot award: design concept 2007

AKIYC — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 15:42:00 GMT

Congruation. Donn Koh and his thesis work "Leapfrog" has won the red dot award: design concept 2007 which is considered as one of the top design competitions around the world. Leapfrog is also the winner of Braunprize 2007. For detailed information of LeapFrog, please visit red dot website: http://www.red-dot.sg/concept/porfolio/06/11ls/R076LF.htm or Donn Koh's webiste: http://www.donnkoh.com/

Leapfrog is a new type of walker designed for children suffering from cerebral palsy or spina bifida, which offers a sense of fun and freedom.

Unlike other assistive walkers, which often concentrate only on the physical needs of children with cerebral palsy or spina bifida, LeapFrog Assistive Walker also factors in their emotional needs. LeapFrog helps children with impaired mobility to rise and stand from a sedentary position, as well as allowing them to practice walking and attain balance. It also allows for short sedentary breaks. The transformation between the various modes (i.e. sitting, standing and walking) is seamless, as it automatically follows the intention and movement of the child. Automatic sit-braking prevents the child from sliding and crashing when seated, and therefore prevents the child from acquiring erroneous movement patterns.

Thus, instead of being forced or locked into positions, the child is partially assisted in the switch between sitting, standing and walking. This not only allows for more autonomous and frequent practice, but also imparts a greater sense of achievement, independence and self-confidence. The product’s support mechanism can be set according to weight and therefore can be adjusted according to the child’s development. In addition, the appearance of LeapFrog gives a caring, fun and toy-like impression instead of the frightening medical aesthetics of conventional walkers, which other children shun in fear. This toy-like appearance even prompts unimpaired children to eagerly ask, “Can I play with that too?”

Donn Koh would also like to acknowledge:

Singapore Cerebral Palsy Centre (link)
For their earnest support throughout the research, development and testing of LeapFrog, in particular the 2 amazing children Martin & Keith, and their parents. Also to dedicated therapists Auntie Baby, Ms. Ong Eng, Mr. Kumar and Uncle Kelvyn.

Ngee Ann Polytechnic Design & Rapid Prototyping Centre (link)
For the special late nights and holidays spent working on 2 RP models of LeapFrog (including the one that won the BraunPrize)! The dedication and skill of Mr. Tan and Mr. Kaya Totong were instrumental in meeting the deadline, and the success of the project.

Stribest Manufacturing (link) & Yew Lee Metals (link)
For generous support in the manufacture of the functional testing rig. Especially to Bah Kut (Yew Lee) and Dennis & DeSheng (Stribest)

Glide won red dot awards: design concept 2007

AKIYC — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 15:33:00 GMT

Congruation to our NUS ID recent graduate Mr. Terence Woon whose thesis work 'Glide" has won the red dot awards: design concept 2007. There were 884 submissions from 46 countries this year and 105 distinguished works honoured with red dot award. The red dot is the quality label for outstanding design. All design concepts that receive the red dot have been examined by a jury of international design experts. His work can be found at http://www.red-dot.sg/concept/porfolio/06/14rc/R102Glide.htm.

Glide provides a new water experience that brings the user back to nature through the experiential and semantic aspects of its design.

Glide examines the relationship between user and water, and seeks to provide a better user experience in the water. Often, water activities are associated with notions of speed and adrenalin. However, what is really enticing about water is the simple pleasure that one derives just by soaking in a bath or floating in the sea. It is this close contact with water, having it gently caressing the body and allowing it to gently drift one along, which makes it such a wonderful experience.

Consequently, Glide is a new product that offers the user a whole new water experience. Breaking the water surface through a graceful and natural movement, it brings one into close contact with water and redefines the relationship between user, equipment and water. Its form and usage evoke sentiments of being in harmony with nature. Designed with the entire water experience in mind, the product is not just about having fun in the water; it also caters to the before-and-after activities such as relaxation, transportation, storage and maintenance. It employs a new method of natural propulsion that accords autonomy and independence from external energy sources. Lightweight and portable, with easy-to-use handle controls, it is a product that is suitable for anyone, anywhere, and anytime.

Wong Kok Keong won Judges' Prize of Muji Award 02

AKIYC — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 13:12:00 GMT

Congruation to our NUS ID alumnus Mr. Wong Kok Keong (AY05/06) whose work has won the Judges' Prize of Muji Award 02 this year. The Competition attracted 3422 entries from 47 countries in the world this year. There was only one Gold Prize ,no Silver Prize, and only three entries were selected by all the judges for the speical awards.

Currently Kok Keong is working in Orcadesign http://www.orcadesign.com.my/, a top design consultant company in Singapore/Malaysia which has won numerous design awards, such as IF design awards, Red-Dot awards, etc.

Below is KK's winning entry:

Judges' Prize: Chornotebook

Name : Wong Kok Keong [Orcadesign] (Singapore)
Category : Notebook

Diary schedules are arranged in lines and grids, which are difficult to see and has little flexibility. This notebook makes it clear, intuitive and easy to plan and see your daily schedules.

Jury comment (Kenya Hara):

The schedule book that expresses the hours of each day in a circle was interesting too. The relationship of the circular movement of the day and that of turning pages is reminiscent of the relationship of the earth’s rotation each year around the sun. It brought a fresh rhythm to a notebook.

Below are other works from the winners:

Gold Prize: Towel with further options

Name : NIIMI [Takuya Niimi/Yuki Niimi] (Japan)
Category : Towel

This bath towel moves your mind toward further uses of the product. Towels take every day dirt and gradually become damaged. In accordance with such changes, you can downsize the towel with "further options" from a bath towel to a bath mat, and then to a floor cloth and dust cloth. The towel has a vertical and horizontal textured surface that does not produce pile-fabric waste when cut with scissors. The lines act as a marker for cutting and form square modules that let you imagine other uses, encouraging you to re-use it.

Judges' Prize: Stackable Hanger

Name : Satoshi Yoshiizumi (Japan)
Category : Hanger

The hangers can be layered precisely, allowing compact placement with a minimum of space occupied. Also, layering something makes you feel good. The feeling of wanting to layer or accumulate something of the same shape might be an innate desire.

Judges's Prize: Kakujio

Name : De Meyboom Lab. [Yasuhito Hirose/Ryohei Yoshiyuki] (Netherlands)
Category : Food

Salt is one of most useful spice for cooking. But, we tend to put too much.
Kakujio is 2.5cc each. You do not have to measure it. It is a certain quantity anytime.

For more detailed information and juries' comments, please visit the award website: http://www.muji.net/award/