Methavi Pontip Design 2012: Week 03

GROUP EXERCISE

• THIS WEEK - Creative thinking techniques

o Based on the concept of REDUCE, brainstorm one design concept for an ecofriendly form of personal transport
o Brand your design with a catchy name
o Enter sketches and notes directly into your blog

This exercise is to create a personal transport based on Reduce concept. When heard the word “reduce” for a transport I thought of cheap, energy saving and recycling. This reminded me of when I was in my home country (Thailand). There was a bad flood then and one thing I could see often was the water transport made by putting two things together which were plastic basin and inner tube or swimming ring.

The inner tube that I’m talking about is the same thing that they use for cars and trucks. In Thailand when we go to beaches we can see a lot of inner tubes available for rent (used as swimming rings) …a bit strange but true!

This does not have motor, engine or anything like that. It does not require fuel but needs to be powered by human. To use this transport we need a paddle. Here I design a two piece paddle for this like a kayak paddle. I give it a name "Flooding tube".

Material – inner tube, plastic basin, two-piece caddle

Shape - round

Power – energy from human

Practical design

I improved this idea by adding a water wheel and a steering wheel on this transport so the flooding tube can be powered by taking energy from flowing water in the wheel as well. However I don’t really know about mechanism of water wheel it’s just the idea. To make this I’ll need further research. Below is an image of the improved idea of Flooding tube and I call it "Flooding Tubing Boat".

Material – inner tube, plastic basin, water wheel, steering wheel

Shape - round

Power – energy from moving water in water wheel, using steering wheel for moving control

Here I have another design idea of personal transport. I call this “E-monocycle”. This is like a common bicycle but an added function is that it’s powered by an electric motor. Like a labtop it has a rechargeable battery and also this E-monobicycle can stand by itself with the one wheel.

I did research on monocycling and found that someone invented an electric monocycle. It is a great personal transport called "Enicycle", an electric one-wheeled scooter created by Slovenian inventor named Aleksander Polutnik. It’s powered by an electric motor and features a self-balancing gyroscope system. The inventor said that anybody can learn to ride it in 3o minutes (the average time). I really want to buy one after watched this video. >__<
For more information visit http://enicycle.com