Task 5: The Story of Bottled Water

The idea that we are being charged 2000 times the amount for bottled water than from our own taps is ludicrous. What is more obscene is that people actually believe that bottled water is better for them, especially in a country that can provide clean tap water at almost no charge.

A water bottle is not only physically useless and a waste of precious resources, but its contribution to landfill is unacceptable. In a time where the world is looking for solutions to minimise the effect of releasing toxic chemicals into the air, water bottles amazingly still remain. Companies have poured millions of dollars into research for 'green' cars, to implement cleaner ways of producing electricity, and for more efficient recycling of necessary products, yet water bottles still remain. It would seem that the geniuses at companies which produce these bottles of water do not have any education, or do not wish to make less money, and do not care at all that their products are nothing but a burden on the environment.

These companies openly encourage drinking bottled water, promoting the 'fact' that tap water is dirty - that the bottled water is much purer and healthier - yet most of these are bottled from the same source as our tap water and those that aren't are no different anyway.

It is good to know that people are showing promise in changing their opinions of bottled water. It is not seen as the convenience item that it once was, as consumers become smarter about these large corporations' tricky methods of selling. Hopefully soon this product will stop being produced due to lack of sales, and the worlds' landfill sites can be used for objects that have no other place to go, not for bottle of water that should never have been produced in the first place.

Final Design: Reflection

Looking back on this project over the past couple of weeks, I can see how big an impact many of the products could make on the world. Every situation gives rise to a number of design opportunities that I believe could lead to a solid design piece.

Before this project I had no knowledge whatsoever of maritime disasters, or any type of maritime products for that matter. This meant that every step of this assignment I was learning something new and fun, but it also meant that it was a challenge every day. Designing products for land isn't easy, but there are things that are concrete and well known, such as how to stabilise products so they stand straight. Change to designing products for water use and suddenly something as simple as this is completely different. Also, keeping a product afloat is a science - boats can stay afloat regardless of their gigantic weight because of water disposition, but without testing the product in a real life situation, it is hard to assume that it will work perfectly. These are, I think, the two issues that are not completely resolved with my design and the areas I would look into if I were to take the design further.

Overall I enjoyed the challenge set by this assignment, not only for the difference in environment, but designing for a specific demographic - the developing world. Not only was designing for water difficult, but also ensuring this design would fit in with a different lifestyle than I'm used to designing for.

Final Design: Evacuate

The evacuate system is a rapid deployment unit that answers the need for evacuation preparation on many operational maritime vessels in developing countries.

As has been seen many times, these countries lack the ability to handle such disasters & this increases the devastating impact it has. In specific relation to the evacuate system, most vessels lack the ability to properly provide life saving rafts, for reasons such as damaged equipment.

This leads to problems in evacuating personnel from the ship as there is nowhere to go – resulting in sporadic distribution of the few who do make it into the water. However, trying to find one survivor in the ocean is likened to looking for a needle in a stack of needles. This presents an opportunity for the deployment of a system that not only serves as a backup life saving device, but one that increases chances of being rescued by increasing surface area covered in the water – The larger the object the easier to spot. This is the main idea behind EVACUATE.

Technically, Evacuate is a one piece roto-moulded HDPE flotation device with a solar powered safety light. However, these base units are connected using high strength copolymer rope and joined using carabineers. Once joined, an evacuation area is formed and it is this area that survivors congregate.

The units themselves are an easily visible bright orange that fits with the visual language of the marine rescue environment. The attached solar light is used for visibility in lower light conditions for both survivors looking for the evacuation point and for rescuers.

Deployment of the evacuate system is via cranes similar to those that exist on many ships for deploying life rafts. Essentially Evacuate is deployed as a whole unit that once in the water, each unit drift apart from each other and create a contained area.

Once inside this area, survivors activate the attached sea marker dyes that will release a bright green, highly visible dye into the water that further increases chance of being spotted. Once rescued, the evacuate unit can also be collected and reused, furthering product life.