NUS graduates top Singapore leg of international design competition
Reable; mobility aid for the eldery. Photo by NUS Industrial Design.
BREAKING NEWS by Florence Tang
20 October 2011
Living with his grandmother, Roger Yeo saw her struggle with her conventional walking aid every day. Rather than sit back and wait for a walking aid with better design to be developed, Yeo started his own project to improve it.
His project, titled “Active Independent Living,” was one of three submissions from the Division of Industrial Design at the National University of Singapore to be selected on Sept. 6 for the international judging round of the James Dyson Awards.
As a prestigious student design award offered by the James Dyson Foundation, it seeks to push the boundaries of creativity and innovation by presenting students with a challenge. This year, students had to “design something that solves a problem.”
Sporting individual projects, Yeo, Chew Se Lin and Cheng Siew Ming were placed first, second and third in the Singapore category respectively. The three NUS finalists, who graduated from the DID in July this year, were among ten finalists selected for the international judging round from Singapore.
Dr Tsai Her Mann, one of the judges for the Singapore leg of the competition, said the decision for the winner was “definitely a unanimous one.”
“Those who can demonstrate their idea certainly have the edge. Those who can tell a passionate story behind their idea (will) shine. With an emotive element, the product is not ‘soul-less’,” Dr Tsai said.
This emotive element resonates in Yeo’s innovation.
“The whole intention was to help my grandmother. I’ve always seen her struggling out of bed and walking. She always needs help,” he said in a telephone interview with The Watchmen.
Thus, Yeo began a looking for ways to improve the conventional walking aid, by angling its back legs and curving its handle inward to provide the user with better support.
His hard work paid off. Besides bagging £1,000 as the best Singaporean entry, his innovation has also made a positive impact on the life of his grandmother.
“I actually produced one prototype which she is currently using now. From her facial expression and her body movements, she is happy. She is also a lot more lively now,” Yeo said.
Dr Tsai also highlighted the importance of new products to not only empower their users but also to allow them to have a novel experience.
“From the perspective of the user, there must be a new meaning not previously experienced. From that point of view, every product has to create a new experience for its users,” he said.
Chew’s project, entitled “Blind Spot”, creates a new experience for the visually-handicapped, allowing them to take the initiative in connecting with friends or family members in close proximity. The idea for her project came from taking a nap on the bus and almost missing her friend, who had boarded the same bus.
“So I thought: what about those who really cannot see? How are they going to interact with people? They cannot take an initiative to really socialize with people. So if their friends don’t even take the initiative, they cannot really talk to them,” she told The Watchmen.
So, Chew began to fashion a white cane which would do more than the usual. Paired with a Bluetooth headpiece, the cane enables the user to connect to social applications such as Foursquare. This enables the visually-handicapped to discern the physical location of a friend or family member, allowing them to initiate meet-ups and conversations.
Third-placed Cheng created a compacted lifebuoy which would inflate upon contact with water. This would circumvent the problem of having bulky lifebuoys that are heavy and cannot be accurately thrown, allowing both inexperienced and experienced users to perform water rescue.
The three projects, along with seven others, will enter the international judging rounds, where they will vie with other top projects from 17 other countries for the top prize of £10,000.
20 October 2011
Living with his grandmother, Roger Yeo saw her struggle with her conventional walking aid every day. Rather than sit back and wait for a walking aid with better design to be developed, Yeo started his own project to improve it.
His project, titled “Active Independent Living,” was one of three submissions from the Division of Industrial Design at the National University of Singapore to be selected on Sept. 6 for the international judging round of the James Dyson Awards.
As a prestigious student design award offered by the James Dyson Foundation, it seeks to push the boundaries of creativity and innovation by presenting students with a challenge. This year, students had to “design something that solves a problem.”
Sporting individual projects, Yeo, Chew Se Lin and Cheng Siew Ming were placed first, second and third in the Singapore category respectively. The three NUS finalists, who graduated from the DID in July this year, were among ten finalists selected for the international judging round from Singapore.
Dr Tsai Her Mann, one of the judges for the Singapore leg of the competition, said the decision for the winner was “definitely a unanimous one.”
“Those who can demonstrate their idea certainly have the edge. Those who can tell a passionate story behind their idea (will) shine. With an emotive element, the product is not ‘soul-less’,” Dr Tsai said.
This emotive element resonates in Yeo’s innovation.
“The whole intention was to help my grandmother. I’ve always seen her struggling out of bed and walking. She always needs help,” he said in a telephone interview with The Watchmen.
Thus, Yeo began a looking for ways to improve the conventional walking aid, by angling its back legs and curving its handle inward to provide the user with better support.
His hard work paid off. Besides bagging £1,000 as the best Singaporean entry, his innovation has also made a positive impact on the life of his grandmother.
“I actually produced one prototype which she is currently using now. From her facial expression and her body movements, she is happy. She is also a lot more lively now,” Yeo said.
Dr Tsai also highlighted the importance of new products to not only empower their users but also to allow them to have a novel experience.
“From the perspective of the user, there must be a new meaning not previously experienced. From that point of view, every product has to create a new experience for its users,” he said.
Chew’s project, entitled “Blind Spot”, creates a new experience for the visually-handicapped, allowing them to take the initiative in connecting with friends or family members in close proximity. The idea for her project came from taking a nap on the bus and almost missing her friend, who had boarded the same bus.
“So I thought: what about those who really cannot see? How are they going to interact with people? They cannot take an initiative to really socialize with people. So if their friends don’t even take the initiative, they cannot really talk to them,” she told The Watchmen.
So, Chew began to fashion a white cane which would do more than the usual. Paired with a Bluetooth headpiece, the cane enables the user to connect to social applications such as Foursquare. This enables the visually-handicapped to discern the physical location of a friend or family member, allowing them to initiate meet-ups and conversations.
Third-placed Cheng created a compacted lifebuoy which would inflate upon contact with water. This would circumvent the problem of having bulky lifebuoys that are heavy and cannot be accurately thrown, allowing both inexperienced and experienced users to perform water rescue.
The three projects, along with seven others, will enter the international judging rounds, where they will vie with other top projects from 17 other countries for the top prize of £10,000.