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This section contains my designs for the real world. Yes I'm a Victor Papanek follower. Papanek persuades us designers to spend at least 10% of our time designing for the basic needs of humans, not the WANTS. I support this noble cause and invite anyone to join me in this little show of design conscience. Send me your designs and I will put them up.
I don't think these designs should ever be patented - in fact implementation of these ideas non-commercially should be encouraged. From when I was a young boy I've always wanted to help reduce/eliminate suffering of humans. Now as an industrial designer, I think I am able to give back to society.
Now every design is like an author's manuscript; he or she needs a publisher. If you're from a non-profit organisation or are willing to fund any of my designs, please contact me at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
. Or if you can work out the dimensions and inner workings, go save the world! I would however appreciate a notification.
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Manna - Emergency Food Relief |
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Written by Nick Tan
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Sunday, 13 December 2009 17:50 |
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Click on images for a larger view.
This was my 2003 graduation project - a cardboard box. That's a bit of a laugh but what this cube at 500 x 500 x 500mm was designed to do would feed a good number of hungry people on the ground. Designed to be air-dropped, this box contained a parachute which is deployed via static line. When it reaches the ground, food (mainly soybeans and water) is cushioned from the fall by a tray of popcorns (yes.... same stuff you eat at the cinemas) at the bottom of the box. So in the end, we've delivered temporary food and water relief, and a nice tray of flattened pop-corns, not to mention shelter (the parachute is made of rip-stop nylon, perfect for building tents). The rest of the box is cardboard mostly, and will disintegrate into the environment over time. It was named Manna after the biblical food sent from the skies.
Coincidentally, just before the exhibition one of my classmates ate a pack of popcorn from my model :) This was the first project I did almost entirely in Maya 5. I'm very passionate about finding the right software for the right job and finally decide on Maya for its animation capabilities. It was one hell of a challenge though, to learn Maya in 4 months to produce an animation of the deployment of Manna. I've since lost the AVI of the animation - it was kinda crude but conveyed the design intent through easily.
Hopefully one the UNESCO guys will see this, and perhaps utilise it in real life conflicts. Send me an email if you do!
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Last Updated on Sunday, 13 December 2009 18:09 |
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Written by Nick Tan
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Sunday, 13 December 2009 09:22 |
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Well that's really the first idea I had for these kids. Carrying that much water on the head can't be good for their necks! Also it must be quite uncomfortable to do that all the time. So I figued if we roto-moulded a few of these water back-packs and cut a hole on the top, we'll be doing them a big favour. BUT I don't really know what it's like to be living in those conditions. Some questions I ask myself - if you're able to answer :
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 22 December 2009 19:41 |
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