INDN 212: Developing A Feasible Project

So, the two ideas that I've decided to pursue further are the idea involving the pot with the indicative heat strip, as well as the idea involving the ladder rest. Both ideas address problems close to me that have struck a chord. The first one addresses an endemic issue with ladder safety, so it just makes sense to get some work involving a common issue.

So, the way I envision this product involves making a large steel plate that can be laid out on the grass, providing a large surface area for the ladder to be safely placed on. This device could be something quite small actually, perhaps it could also fold up and be attached to the ladder as a detachable accessory. To get the device to stay on the grass or earth, it could have small spikes that fold out of the base that the user could then use to embed the base into the earth.

There could be small handles on the sides of the device, making it easier to handle and control, and if I had a really ambitious team, we could even make the device have small jacks in it, so that you could raise up either side to make an angled platform for when the ground is sloped. Another idea was to have the platform have little pop-up recesses so that the legs of the ladder could sit on the platform without sliding.

All in all, I really like this idea, but I think if I were to go with it, I'd need to do a lot of refining and sort out a workable form.

This is a completely different idea involving household kitchen safety, centering around the handling of pots and pans. This project could have a few different outlets, and I've decided to talk about my two favourites. The primary focus for this project is very specific. I want the user to receive visual clues as to when a pot is hot. Now, the way that I want the user to receive the information and how they can interact with that function is where I've divided the project into two slightly different areas.

The first idea is a pot that provides a visual cue as to when it is hot, so as to prevent the user getting burnt when they pick up a hot pot. The primary target group that usually suffer due to this hazard are young children and careless or distracted individuals. Providing a visual cue allows the users to receive extra information not always received when just looking at a hot pot. This indicator could take the form of a strip that adheres to the pot, or it could be a built in part of the pot, or it could even be a small scarf-like device that sits around the pot, and changes colour when the pot is too hot to touch.

The second idea that I have revolves around the potential of making a fully self contained system that acts as more than just a heat indicator for the pot. I think it could be a serving board for the pot, an interim point between cooking the food and serving it, or maybe something that combines a chopping board with a temperature gauge so that the user can find the optimum temperature to serve their food. This method of protecting the user could allow the object to be something large and self-contained, and could potentially incorporate a lot of functions.

So, the idea that I'm going to explore in more depth is the heat indicator. Stay tuned!