RESQROLL is a product invented and designed by Mr. Brian Carling. Its an amazing concept created to reduce the risk of spinal damage after an accident. Mr. Brian elaborated his process of designing this masterpiece product in the session on Tuesday 16th of February.

RESQROLL is a product designed to prevent post accident damages to the spine of an injured person. It may be any accident. According to Mr. Brian, the human spine bears the impact of the accident becomes weak. If after an accident the person is abruptly extricated, his spine may suffer a permanent damage. In this context, RESQROLL provides a solution for these post accidental damages.

To initiate the designing of the product, Mr. Brian started rough and random sketches, which he emphasised as an essential method to start any design. He also elaborated about the research he had to do in designing the product. The questions he encountered while designing were, the weight of the product, its reusability, materials to be used and its ease of use for any person. The point on which he was emphasising while the lecture was, to double the time schedule of any research project we undertake. He also revealed that he did the project while working on his existing job. That was a really inspiring insight to see someone be so much successful with strong will, determination and positive attitude.

It was really a valuable session. I got a glimpse of how a product with an innovative idea is designed from a scratch if you are determined. I also learned to be confident and believe on your instincts.

AMBABA

Ambaba is a company which develops reusable nappy pads for children. This company is run by Mel Woods and Roz Henderson. They make nappies which can be used for the kids, from infancy till they start using the toilets.

Personally, I am unaware about the nappy context as I haven't seen the use of nappies in my surroundings. Still, I found the project interesting. I felt motivated with the idea, basically to work for something which would encourage ecological balance. The idea of a disposable nappy and its design as a solution for ecological balance as well as its aesthetic model to make it look better as compared to the other hugely sized disposable nappies is an innovative venture, which I never thought of before.

This project motivated me to think about many more ecological issues today, which we face like the issue of non degradable medical products, the need of waste management, etc. It also provoked me to think from the disposable point of view in the medical stapler packaging design project, which I am currently working on.

Today we had an eye opening lecture about writing formal emails by Dr Kathleen Mcmillan who is an academic writing advisor in our university.

I was in a blind mindset of polite email writing, until she described it as an Indian standard of writing an email. I learnt that the use of words such as "Can you kindly do...", which I wrote in almost every formal email of mine, was actually a negative way of approaching the recipient. Also the use of "Respected sir" as a salutation mark is inappropriate, as it exaggerates the plea of application, which was again used repeatedly by me in my emails. I wonder how much miscommunication I would have caused due to these minor things in my emails to the university staff, my tutors and other elder people up till now.

The lecture was quite interesting and humorous comparing emails with the other forms of communication such as telephone, text messages on a mobile or a one to one conversation. I learnt about the phrasal verbs, which must not be used in the emails and its relation to the history of German, French and Latin languages.

It was really an useful session to understand formal email writing, which is the most important way of communication in today's world.

We had a lecture on a research project led by Dr Norman Alm, a Senior Lecturer, Department of Applied Computing, University of Dundee. It was an interesting lecture about how the use of multimedia and technology can help elderly people suffering from dementia to express themselves.

He was describing about the context of the design problem, like, people suffering from dementia usually talk on same things repeatedly, which sometimes can be irritating for the care takers. While Dr. Norman Alm was explaining about the project and their team's interaction with elderly people, I recalled the memories with my grand mother. She wasn't suffering from dementia, but being old, she always wanted to share her stories and incidences in the past with we, young people. Sometimes, even if the stories were interesting it wasn't always possible for us to sit near her and listen to her stories. This project just gave me a nostalgic feeling about my interaction with my grand mother and felt that, such an interactive venture would be tipping point in terms of interacting with the elderly people, especially those suffering with dementia.

The project also made me think of the emerging problems and extraordinary design solutions. It changed my view towards design, and gave me a glimpse of an innovative design solution for a persistent problem. Listening to the lecture also helped me understand the experiences of Dr. Norman with his team mates, like selecting a research team, working with people of different background in teams, management of the team, etc.

It was an insightful and motivational lecture

On Monday, we had an amazing experience of briefing our Master's project. We were given a set of 15 questions and we had to answer them visually. It was not a regular write up task, on a sheet of paper, but it was answering those questions through a strange and interesting way. We had to blow 15 balloons and draw the 15 answers on each of the balloons.

I found it a quite interesting way of doing a task in a different way. It created an atmosphere of enthusiasm in the class. It was fun, everybody was helping each other in blowing the balloons, as it was the task of exhaustion. I feel that, because of this method my involvement in the task was more than what it would have been if it was mere writing on a sheet of paper.