Industrial Product Design and Sustainability
"A valuable set of resource that brings industry even closer to the classroom. All resources address the curriculum requirements and more!!"
Peter Simmons, Head of The Creative Design Faculty, AST D&T South Glos, John Cabot Academy
Designing for the User: Inclusive Design
How do designers research potential markets to ensure they create products that meet the needs of users and are inclusive, irrespective of age or ability? This DVD provides three examples drawn from: Textiles (a smart cushion for office workers and the elderly); Resistant Materials (children's bikes); and Graphics/Packaging (redesign of the mobile phone experience). It shows how designers: consider the values and needs of users; determine the intended market or user and make use of ergonomics and anthropometrics. It also discusses how designers can respond to the challenges of demographic change and inclusive design.
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Sustainable Packaging
An ideal resource for students studying Food Technology, Graphic Design, Resistant Materials, Product Design, Sustainability and Citizenship. This DVD looks at how the food industry is responding to pressure to use less packaging. Made with the help of M&S head of packaging, the resource explores; the role and function of packaging, how packaging and graphic designers are working with suppliers to reduce Easter packaging while ensuring products still look good and get to shelves in one piece, and how plastic bottles are recycled into new food grade plastic, before being formed into containers and filled with salads for the M&S “Food to Go” range.
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Designing with recycled materials
Government legislation, consumer pressure and new technology are all creating new opportunities for designers. This programme looks at how they are rising to the challenge of designing mass produced products from recycled plastics. Case studies include a chair made from Sony Playstations and washing machines that use parts made from recycled fridge plastic. We follow the design process from concept, to modelling, testing and evaluation.
We also visit a state of the art recycling plant to see how new technology is being used to process and convert waste products into high-grade polymers and how their properties and characteristics are identified using both destructive and non-destructive tests. The pros and cons of using virgin vs recycled materials are then discussed.
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Volvo – Life cycle Assessment
With extraordinary access to their car manufacturing plant in Sweden, Volvo’s environmental experts show how life cycle assessment has enabled them to reduce the carbon footprint of their products, from design, through manufacturing, use and end of life recycling. We see how materials are chosen, and manufacturing processes developed, in function of their impact on the life cycle and sustainability of a car.
Examples include: how their “nose team” test for and eliminate toxic pollutants from car interiors; how manufacturing inputs have been reduced by using recycled heat from nearby oil refineries; and how new technology has enabled Volvo to all but eliminate emissions from their paintshop, making it the cleanest in the world.
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Product Design and Mass Manufacture – Design optimization
In the world of product design, optimizing the design within the constraints of the brief is paramount.
This programme takes a high volume, low unit cost product and follows the design process from concept to manufacture. It shows how good design means using less material, having fewer and simpler components, so ensuring cheaper tooling and easier assembly. It illustrates how designers make use of primary and secondary research, the role of aesthetics and function, shape form and colour, and the importance of ergonomics and anthropmetrics. The programme also explores the benefits of CAD in testing, modelling, and rapid prototyping, and looks at how it has changed the designer’s role.
"Endorsed by OCR for use with the OCR GCSE Design and Technology: Product Design specification"
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Choosing sustainable materials
Consumer pressure and new legislation mean designers and architects are increasingly being asked to use materials from a sustainable source. We talk to one of the world’s leading architects who shows us round the UK’s first zero carbon housing project and visit the Smile plastics factory where anything from old mobile phones to children’s’ Wellingtons is turned in to building materials.
The programme explores what makes a material sustainable, including: certification, recycling, and the inputs and carbon footprint required to create them. It talks to material scientists and examines the characteristics and properties of these materials. It then explores the benefits and limitations of using them and asks, what makes a building or product truly sustainable?
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Volvo cars: Designing for Innovation and safety
Volvo’s dream is for a crash free future….but how do you design innovative safety systems for the cars of tomorrow without compromising the aesthetic? With unparalleled access to their chief designer and engineer, we get to look around the world’s most advanced crash-testing facility, finding out about:: the drivers for innovation behind Volvo’s new concept car; the role of the Volvo brand in product design; how testing, both physical and virtual, aid product design; and how engineers and designers work together to ensure the integration of new safety features into the overall design.
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Product Design, Testing and Modification
Designing products that meet rigorous safety standards is an increasingly important skill – especially when it comes to products used by children.
Trunki, the child’s pull along suitcase, may have failed the BBC Dragon’s Den test, but thanks to further testing and modification it’s now taking the world by storm. We film with the product designer and at one of the world’s leading test centres, to find out about the different tests carried out on children’s products, why calibrating equipment is so important and how clever design reduced costs and time to market. We also hear why at last two of the Dragons believe this was the one that got away.
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