Ex-undergraduate, and now PhD student, Maddy Conaghan and I talked at the National Road Safety Conference 2014 at the Grand Hotel in Brighton this afternoon. Great conference – lively and lots of atmosphere. Lots of interest in Maddy’s work around driver cognitive overload too.
It was great to see old friends in Romania again last week, attending the Conference for Sustainable Energy at the impressive new RESREC research building. Some great speakers too, around the bias of market systems away from renewables towards fossil fuels, the development of chemical dies for photosynthetic solar power, and the design of products using recycled mix polymers. Hopefully our talk on LCA work in low energy furniture was of interest too. We have two exchange places for some lucky students to go and study in beautiful Brasov for 1 semester. Richard.
Well done to last years graduates, and its good to see Sam Young’s smart alarm ad Nik Hannay’s US football helmet getting so much press attention. It also good to some great employment statistics coming through and to hear of the great jobs many of you are getting in to.
Over the summer, we’ve seen Cockcroft building transformed into a glass and steel edifice, more makerbots arriving, and new PhD students arriving including welcomes to Zainab, Bahar and our own Madeleine Connaghan. Their research projects will be looking at improving the design process, designing to reduce skin cancer and user experience design.
Now we are finally back into a new academic year and kicking off again with our process driven course format. More staff videos so lots of interesting times in the tv studio and working with the new Adobe CC software. Hopefully more blogs and updates to come . . .
Sorry that we haven’t been talking much lately, it’s been very, very busy. Des, Eddy, Cathy, Steven and a sprinkling of students are currently all down in Southampton presenting at the Ergonomics & Human Factors Cconference (http://www.ehf2014.org.uk/), Mark is working on some interesting developments for his PhD, and I’m just back from reviewing product design courses at two other Universities for the IED.
Our own course changes seem to be working well although we’ll have a full review at the end of the year. It’s easy though to see that our 4 new maker bots have been particularly helpful, and good to have our Designer in Residence Hamish on hand to help out as well.
After the Easter break we have a few more teaching weeks then will start our exhibition series. First year work is viewable by the public on Wed 14th, 2nd years on Wed 21st, and final years on 30th and 31st May in the Basement rooms (Friday 16.00 to 22.00 and Saturday 10.00 to 18.00, http://www.thebasement.uk.com/venue_home.html). Some final years will be then up at New Designers as usual from 2nd to 5th July.
Thanks to all of those who have been keeping in touch with us – some really great stuff going on out there. I hope that we’ll be able to catch up with some of you at these events.
Anyone interested in further PhD study should look at the studentships being offered by Design Star, a consortium of top UK Design Research departments with AHRC funding for up to 12 studentships a year. Design Star covers areas of history, theory, and practice in looking at contemporary social concerns and engaging with external partners. The deadline for applications is 28th February and further details can be found through the links below: The main website: http://www.designstar.org.uk. This is the Brighton page for Design Star:
Nice to hear last years graduate Evan Mackrill on radio Sussex yesterday. Evan has started up Crown Hockey as a business to sell the innovative, low vibration hockey stick he designed in his final year – image (and more info) from http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/10582645.University_of_Brighton_designer_invents_hockey_stick_that_absorbs_vibrations/
Trevor T showing how quick & easy it can be to draw complex curves in Solidworks and printed on the Stratysis RP.
Given the number of motorbike accidents and injuries, isn’t it strange how little has changed in the way of rider safety? Thanks to Keith Baldock and Brighton and Hove City Council for highlighting the particular issues around smaller, commuter bikes, and well done to Product Design students Louisa, Chloe and Oliver for their pitch today proposing an innovative design solution around perspective.
Thanks to Jake and Frankie for the brilliant life drawing classes today – see you next week!
Good luck to the students selected to study overseas for a period with our exchange partners in Lund, Sweden.
I’ve just returned from a trip to their impressive Design Centre; I wish I could have spent longer there!
Have a great trip guys.
Richard Morris, Course Leader.