I had a chance to watch a live surgery today. It was a colon surgery, the patient was suffering from crohn's disease. Initially, I though I would faint in the operation theatre, but the environment was quite friendly and not serious at all. There was music running on a small music system, doctors were chatting and cracking jokes while answering to our questions.
As I am working in a group in a project of redesigning a surgical stapler, the motive behind watching the live surgery was to understand the use of the surgical stapler. It basically consisted to observe the storage, its use by the prime stake holders, the surgeon, assistant surgeon and the scrub nurse, to learn about the usage of its packaging, and handling of the stapler by the surgeon and his assistant. A lot of information was revealed after watching the actual live procedure with the stapler's use.
It was an unforgettable morning in my life. Earlier, in the last days of my school, I used to feel like becoming a doctor and performing a surgical procedure. In my childhood, I used to perform a fake kiddies surgery on my grand parents while they were asleep, pasting wet white papers on their body as bandages. My grandpa also used to enjoy and praise the performance, making a relieving sound as a disguise of feeling better after the surgery. Today, even if I didn't perform a surgery, I actually felt like being a doctor. The picture below elaborates my feelings neatly. :)
That's Fiona (my colleague) and me, watching the surgery with a broad smile. :)
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.
I watched a documentary, “From jail to jihad”, which was broadcasted on Monday, 16th of June 2008, at 8.00 PM, on Channel 4. It is based on the radicalization of British prisoners into extremists on false Islamic ideologies. It also deals with the problems faced as well as measures taken by the British government to neutralize these youngster's religious beliefs and stop the spread of extremism.
Reporter Mr. Amil Khan reveals how the prisoners are misled through extremists inside the prison by addressing false Islamic preaching to the young prisoners, or by supplying of DVDs containing the speeches of some Islamic revolutionaries, or through literature material distributed inside the prison. These young prisoners are motivated, through this preaching, to commit crimes and violence against non-Muslim masses and are convinced by their guru extremists that, if committed against any non-Muslim, Islam justifies these acts. British government is also now taking strict measures to allocate Imams for friday prayers, who are highly qualified and righteous in Islamic ideologies.
These youngsters are full of anguish due to the street lives they live in. Extremists take advantage of these troubled youngsters and contact them either by staying outside the mosques or through the prisons. They gradually drag them into terrorist activities, blinding them on the false religious beliefs and radicalize them into Jihad, for the sake of Allah, the almighty.
I am now thinking of using this context to be the focusing point of my project. I am thinking about how advertising design can change the viewpoints of these youngsters, towards Islam, political violence, and terrorism. Concluding this, my campaign would now be targeted towards these radicalized youngsters.
Design to combat terrorism, is the topic for my Masters this year. Its a vast subject with varied definitions, none of which are substantial. All sorts of questions arise while you think about the topic. The first question is, why? Why does this happen? Why would they do it? Who motivates these people to this extent?
Terrorism, from what I am trying to understand, is not just the national attacks, suicide bombings, hijacks. The violent acts harming innocent or unarmed masses, rebellion of students in universities can also be termed as terrorism. Before I start to read - although I have just started reading on the topic - when I was thinking about terrorism, I imagined about the terrorism in Kashmir, the terrorist attacks in Mumbai in November 2008, the hugely hyped 9/11 attack on the twin towers, and such major events. But then I realized that its just a part of terrorism, though the events which have occurred are major ones.
I came to know that a student rebellion, which is against an institution, organization or university can also be called as terrorism. The protests, rallies, sometimes create destruction in the offices or campuses of the university, mostly not harming the innocents. I feel myself as a terrorist as well, when I recall those moments of my college life. We all did rebellions against the university for certain demands in favor of the students. We used to go out for rallies and protests on the road of Pune, walking or sometimes on our bikes. Only once we had the interference of police and the leaders of our rebellion were arrested for a short period of time. Luckily, I wasn't any of the leaders and also not present there at that time.
One more question I am thinking on is, why is the Islamic religion usually under the suspect of terrorism? Almost all the names we hear about the terrorists or terrorist organizations, those are from the islamic religion. I have a lot of good friends who are from the same religion and sometimes are frustrated due to these acts, as the whole religion becomes a target due to some minorities.
Being a graduate from a design school and advertising and illustration as my major subjects, I want to concentrate on an advertising campaign for counter terrorism. Use of visual communication to make people be aware and understand about any suspicious acts going around them, which would lead to any violence. I want to understand how people communicate regarding these issues, like websites, posters, rallies - like the recent ones in Mumbai after the mumbai terror attacks- , news papers, etc. Other things I want to understand is the design of building structures. If we consider the Chattrapati Shivaji Terminal station in Mumbai and compare it with the Kings Cross station in London, what are the major differences in the two in terms of security?
These are some of my ideas and future prospects of my research on my masters project. Please suggest or comment about your views, or any valuable information you have, which would help me explore the subject.
