Sixteen students from the graduating batch of Industrial Design from the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA) on Tuesday showcased prototypes of their innovations that have been created by combining technology and design to solve problems with a human-centric approach.
Fight against cancer
Among the sixteen designs is Aditi Sit’s product titled ‘Can Care Pals’, an aid to comfort and encourage children fighting cancer aged 5-10 years.
The product uses a story-telling technique with characters like a warrior and a monster to help children understand and co-operate with the procedures that they are undergoing. An app that is integrated with the game assists parents. As chemotherapy progresses, the warrior becomes stronger and finally defeats the monster.
Aditi says the idea came to her when she saw children spending hours receiving chemotherapy.
Another innovation, Divya Singh’s Ogroot, is a self-sustaining system that facilitates the growth of all types of plants. It can be placed in the balcony and supplies water and compost as and when needed.
It can fulfil the daily vegetable requirements of an urban family and is integrated with an app that instructs the “urban farmer” on the entire process like amount of sunlight needed, which seeds to plant, how much water to be provided and when to harvest.
Divya says the idea came to her while reading stories about pesticide content in vegetable and how harmful they are.
Other innovations include a hand pump with an inbuilt water purifier for villages that works on a pendulum mechanism to reduce human effort; learning tools to help students understand the visual aspect of calculus; a tool to enhance handwriting; a travel kiosk to enhance the tourist experience in Uttarakhand; and a de-stressing gadget that teens can use to confide in based on the principles of cognitive behavioural therapy.
Relevant and practical
Parag Anand, Associate Professor at School of Planning and Architecture , says there is a fine line between absurdity and rationality and Industrial Design students are taught how to design products that are not only socially relevant but also are built from materials that are local and practical to obtain.
The exhibition titled Design Premiere 2019 is on till May 24 at the Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre and is open to the public to spread design awareness and create design-related dialogue and discourse.
