The inventive spark is burning bright at Otago Polytechnic as design students work on the next big invention, writes Kim Dungey.
Design is all about making the next big thing and Griffin Hadland wants to be part of it.
"I'd like to have a career in drones technology, build drones and apply their use in different fields,'' the first-year product design student says. "And start my own [design-based] business.''
Hadland (18), is standing in Otago Polytechnic's EPICentre, a workshop equipped with a range of machines and digital tools to help students undertake practical research. Around him are a variety of projects being showcased in this week's "Debrief'' exhibition at the polytechnic.
"Product design is one of the most important areas of growth for New Zealand business and enterprise,'' product design academic leader Machiko Niimi says, quoting a PriceWaterhouse Coopers report that showed design contributed $10.1 billion to the economy in the year ended March 2016.
This equated to 4.2% of New Zealand's GDP and 4.4% of New Zealand's total employment. More than $4.5 billion of this economic activity came from just two design disciplines: product design and interactive design.
But design is about more than making money: "We attract a lot of students who want to shape the world in a better way.''
Niimi says the polytechnic's bachelor of design (product) course teaches "human-centred'' design, which requires students to understand people and technology and design for "real needs''. Many students have already worked with clients to solve specific problems.
One of those is Francis Bingham who, in partnership with the Yellow-Eyed Penguin Trust, developed a wildlife monitoring system. At present, rangers walk kilometres each day to remote nesting locations, where they check the health of penguins in the nesting and moulting seasons when they are most at risk. Bingham's device enables the remote monitoring of penguins on their nesting boxes and it can even weigh each bird and identify at-risk individuals.
Harvey Penfold's movable, predator-proof PekaPeka bird-feeding platform will be installed on properties in Northeast Valley to encourage more native birds to visit and live there.
Jeremy Metherell's canvas hammock, created with a low centre of gravity for stability and ease of entry and exit, has been sold by New Zealand brand Cactus Outdoor.
The GLO children's wheelchair designed by Metherell, Elizabeth Anderson, Steven Kulicke and Malwin Schloegel, has a lift system that allows the seat to be raised or lowered. The child can lower themselves to play on the floor or raise themselves to interact at table height. The seat can be removed from the wheels so the wheelchair can be easily transported in a vehicle.
The Quantum automated livestock injector designed by Ian McDowall allows for more controlled, reliable injections of dairy cows and enables the user to record livestock information during the injection process, using radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology.
The injector was a finalist in the student product category of this year's Designers Institute of New Zealand's "Best Awards'' while the wheelchair won a silver award and the hammock a bronze. Meanwhile, the feeding platform won the annual Audacious business challenge.
Slippery slope
Charlotte Goodyear knew the perfect place to test early versions of her "super slicker'' sled.
"At Aramoana, there's a huge sand dune. It was perfect,'' she says.
Goodyear, who is in her first year studying product design at Otago Polytechnic, wanted to make a sled that worked on sand and that could be easily controlled.
She made her first five prototypes out of a reasonably cheap corrugated plastic commonly used for real estate signs, adjusting the shape and maximising the surface area until she came up with one that would stay on top of the sand and slide over it.
Finally, she heated a sheet of thermo plastic so it was pliable, stretched it on to a 3-D model and forced it against the mould with a vacuum. The process was "totally new'' to her but worked well.
The 22-year-old, who has always enjoyed woodwork, sewing and art, says studying product design enabled her to be more creative.
Based on the prototypes, she believes her sled will perform well on sand, snow or grass but she hasn't yet tested the final version because she wanted to keep it clean for this week's "Debrief'' exhibition.
Scaling up
Griffin Hadland has always wanted to be an inventor.
"I just like creating, innovating and building,'' the 18-year-old says. "And I really like working with my hands.''
As a year-13 pupil at Taieri High School, Hadland was commissioned by Fish and Game to design and make eight prefabricated mai mais, now in place at wetlands around Otago.
In his first year studying product design, he had to create a chair that was significant to design history. Hadland chose the Cape Cod or Adirondack chair because even though it had a humble background, being created by an American holidaying in the mountains in 1903, it is still instantly recognisable. Almost every hardware shop has a version and many people build their own. His 1:6 scale version was made from laser-cut MDF board.
Hadland is interested in electronics, particularly drone technology, but will continue to build as a hobby because he enjoys it.
Rapid technological change will alter the way many of us live and work and he hopes his studies will prepare him for that change.
"I'd like to make a difference; a sizeable difference, be remembered, have a legacy. That would be nice.''
Setting a benchmark
Tania Turei's bench and stools are her take on contemporary Maori furniture design.
The curvature of the legs, the linear pattern, the negative detail and the way the furniture "hugs the earth'' are all designed to mimic features of Maori carving and architecture.
Made from FSC-certified 13-layer birch ply, the seats are strong and the edges become a feature in themselves instead of something to hide.
Turei, who likes organic shapes, named her product "pae'' seating. In Maori, pae means horizon or horizontal, she says. The word paepae is sometimes used for the front of a marae.
The third-year student used Solidworks 3-D modelling software to build her models and a computer-controlled router to cut out the pieces: "It's less a work of craft than a work of technical design,'' she explains.
Lecturer Machiko Niimi says the seating was Turei's interpretation of how Maori art and culture could be embedded into product design and was executed in an elegant way.
"The common perception of Maori design is very face value,'' Turei says. "You see a tiki and if you're not looking hard enough, that's where you stop.
"I see [the seats] being used in public commercial spaces but first and foremost, I'd like to think they'd be at home on the marae.''
Turei adds she enjoyed her previous jobs draughting boat interiors and architecture but wanted to learn how to design rather than draught: "Draughting is taking someone else's design and communicating it to the people who will build it. Design is about communicating your own [vision]. There's a lot more creativity and opportunity.''
The 45-year-old mother of three, who will continue with postgraduate studies next year, says thinking about design does not end when her classes are finished for the day.
"You go to sleep and dream about it, especially if you're trying to solve something.''
A field of his own
It's not the usual place you would expect to find a designer but Casey Munro was often on a farm on the Taieri Plain this year.
The 20-year-old, third-year product design student was asked to design a waterproof harness and patch to be fitted to sheep as part of investigations into a drug delivery system that might one day be used to treat Parkinson's.
The system uses ultrasound to trigger local release of tiny biological packages called liposomes. The plan is to use it to trigger behavioural responses and reverse motor impairments.
Munro says it was satisfying to work with real clients on a project, in his case, the Reynolds lab in the anatomy department at the University of Otago and local firm Kamahi Electronics.
The "patch'' or plate that sits on the animal's back is attached to a commercial ram harness he modified for the purpose and holds a GPS monitor and a box containing electronics and batteries. The attachment points needed to be at the top of the sheep for ease of use and the entire pack needed to stay rigid but not impair the animals' movement.
To create a durable, waterproof patch, Munro used an industrial sewing machine from the polytechnic's fashion school, a glue-welded PVC material filled with 3mm foam and a reinforced aluminium plate that runs down the spine of the animal.
He refined the design at least 10 times and at one stage was visiting the farm every one to two weeks to test his prototypes.
If successful, the drug delivery system could pave the way for treatments for many different neurological conditions, not just Parkinson's, he says. The harness could also be modified for other animals and other uses, including the GPS tracking of stock on large properties.
The exhibition
• Debrief, an exhibition showcasing design disciplines at Otago Polytechnic (from product design to communication design, fashion and interior design), is on at The Hub in Forth St from 10am to 4pm today and from 10am to noon tomorrow.
• Members of the public can also join Denise L’Estrange-Corbet from World Fashion House at ‘‘Made in NZ’’, a question and answer session on the importance of keeping product design in New Zealand. Presented in association with the polytechnic’s fashion school, the free event will be held at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery at 3pm today.
