Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Australian Update


Sorry I’ve been kind of neglecting you guys since I’ve been here. Moving to a new country takes a lot of work (setting up banking, cell phones, internet connections, etc. etc...boring stuff).
I’ve been in Adelaide, Australia for a little over a month now and am in my 4th week of school at the University of South Australia (UniSA). I’ve enrolled myself in 3rd year studio: focus on usability design, ceramic production techniques, and furniture for manufacture. 
First off, our studio actually has windows! I was really excited about that. The atriums on our campus are also all outside, since they don’t really have to deal with the same weather conditions that we do. It’s really cool, but also very strange.

Oh, hi Justin!

Studio:
  • Worth double credit (like 1st semester 3rd year at Carleton)
  • 2 projects in parallel:
    • redesign a mobile projection unit (a cart with a projector, a laptop, and all the fixings)
    • redesign a stud finder (focus on model building for iterations. Foam and simple electronics.)
Thanks to the stud finder project, I’ve learned to solder in the last 2 days. Built myself a snazzy circuit board too so I can test the feedback and usability of my models. 
The lights and speaker can all be inserted into foam models so I can use the
control board to replicate actual functions during user testing.

Ceramic Production Techniques:
  • Basically a mix of techniques (like from mass pro) and an arts course
  • I play with clay and mix up glazes
Furniture for Manufacture:
  • Pretty much what the title says
  • First project was a research project on a designer and one of their designs. We did our video on Hans Wegner’s Papa Bear Chair.
  • Final project will be to design and fabricate a full scale stool.
So that’s a little update on ID life in Adelaide. If you’re interested in reading a bit about what else has been going on down here outside of school feel free to visit my travel blog, because Australia is freaking awesome.
-Linette