Design 21: Social Design Network

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Patty talked about Ikea as a great example of assembly instructions, using minimal language and relatively simple illustrations.

I found THIS page on Ikea's website- it is a list of all their products with a pdf of assembly instructions

-enjoy

Mission: Curb the spread of diseases by improving hygiene in Kenyan schools through a hand washing system

Introducing "Floco* Safi's unique flow control mechanism

Safi first board

Safi second board

Some updates:

1. I had a great phone conversation with a school teacher in Uganda and learned more about her school's unique needs.
2. I secured a location for my user testing (back yard of a west village school)
3. A Safi prototype is being built by me and a Floco mechanism, which was designed with the help of engineer Yuval Spector, are being looked over and hopefully soon prototyped in Shenzhen, China.

First Board

Second Board

After designing Safi Mechanism1 I contacted Yuval Spector, an engineer I know. He has helped me create a new mechanism.

The advantages of this mechanism are that the handle is coming out of the side instead of the top which it will allow me to use standard piping (the pieces can be connected using 'T' connectors used in plumbing.

This is an initial mechanism I have designed where the water is contained in the large main container and is released through the lower 'funnels' as the button at the top is being pushed to fill the the funnel, which is also the 'measuring cap'.

Target ages: 6-13

Average height of a 6 year old child: 108cm Average height of a 13 year old child: 147cm (girls are taller)

** Notice that these heights are an international mean and not necessarily indicators of heights of children in Kenya.

In terms of height of the water dispenser, there are two options. One would be to have a set height; This would be 77cm as it is the height of a 6 year old with his hands at chest level and a 14 year old with hands at waist level. Another option would be to have the younger kids stand on a stool.

a 14 year old in on average 38cm wide. (Even thought I will use this figure, I assume the African mean is smaller than the world mean)

Counting on 14 cm between children on each side: 38+14= 52 52*4 units = 208 cm This is only if standing in a straight line. A circular arrangement, for example, could have a 30 cm diameter.

I also decided to try to use existing pipings made for pluming mainly to reduce costs further.

A visual comparison of Safi's competitions. This is in addition to my previous posting describing the advantages and disadvantages of each alternative.

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Two websites that I am very much interested in lately are GoogleTrends and Google Zeitgeist

From their site:" 'Zeitgeist' means "the spirit of the times", and Google reveals this spirit through the aggregation of millions of search queries we receive every day. We have several tools that give insight into global, regional, past and present search trends. These tools are available for you to play with, explore, and learn from. Use them for everything from business research to trivia answers."

It is very tricky picking the right combination of words for a fair comparison, so dont draw too many conclusions, aside from the fact that our society is quite shallow (Top searches in 2006 Google News were 'Paris Hilton' followed by 'Orlando bloom' and just then.. 'Cancer')

Go and explore.. it is very interesting.

some of my explorations: drinking water vs oil, drinking water vs barbie, hand washing vs barbie and oil crisis vs water crisis

Primary-school children get hit the hardest by the lack of clean water. The consequence is diarrhoeal disease which kills 5,000 children a day. The simple act of washing hands with soap and water could alone cut this figure by almost a half. It is the best way to prevent distribution of bacteria.

Safi is targeting communities that do not hand-wash regularly, but who do have safe water available. Therefore, its alternative, for most communities, would be not washing hands at all.

There are some communities who do wash their hands on a regular basis, and these are some of the ways they do:

• Taps and sinks (as used in the US and Europe) These are quite rare, and usually subsidized by external/ international NFP organizations. Local schools and communities usually don’t have the means of purchasing such ‘extravagant’ equipment. As well as that, materials and molds necessary are not sourced or manufactured in the locations in which they are distributed, leading to foreign dependency.

• Tippy Taps are made by hanging up a plastic container and punching a whole in it. Even though this system is very economical, it is also very low-tech; water keeps pouring out as children rotate and does not allow for an individualized hand-washing situation (i.e. when one child returns from the bathroom and needs to wash hands individually) It also does not take any consideration of grey water (although sometimes plants are being placed under the Tippy Tap). There is no control over the a...