Vacuum Cleaner Project One

This is an image of my most successful concept.

This was a 3 month project that the lab was involved with. The task was to offer a face lift to an existing vacuum cleaner to make it more appropriate for an international, namely European, market.

My role was as a design team member and I was primarily involved in the design elements listed below:

1. Concept work: I was a core concept designer and the company liked my concept. However, at this time I injured my foot so I could not make the necessary developments to bring my concept back for the second review. Elemental Design. Our client brought us a basic element set that we needed to keep in tact for the control system of the unit. I worked to explore interface designs and other aspects of the elemental array.
2. Consulting: I was part of this project almost all the way though and because it was intended for a European market they asked me to offer any international experience I had in this area. The main service I provided was in suggesting styles that the European market would be more or less interested in.I burnt my foot during this project so my work was not consistent. After the appropriate amount of healing I returned to the lab to finish my contribution to the project.
   

This is an image of the chosen concept.

The product is now in mass production.

This project may mark a turning point in my design ideology. Before having done this project I had a lot of knowledge about all the practices and methods used to do such things but I had not actually ever put my ideas together to form a full pipeline of this time. At RMIT many of the projects I had been involved with were much more about either technology or concept or theory. This was perhaps the first time where all of these things really came together for me. It should also be made known that, prior to this, I was completely unconvinced that anything I could draw could be useful to anyone. However, when I was told that I needed to make sketches for that afternoon of 3 to 20 vacuum concepts I somehow managed to come though. In fact, they thought I was drawing too accurately and that I should ease up to let the concepts develop more. I did this and my colleagues seemed to see my work as not only acceptable but even worthwhile - something I thought would never happen if I were drawing. I later realised that the degree of professionalism common in China in this sort of environment was not what had been suggested to me. It is not a shell of skill and technical ability without a strong theoretical core but almost the opposite. It came to be obvious that their theory and design studies were so strong that there technical ability just fell into place and, if you look carefully, you can notice this in their outcomes.

I learnt a few things on this project and it opened my mind to what I could do. I think this was perhaps the most confidence inspiring thing I did in China and repercussions of this project have changed the way I look at my work and my future in design.

Recovering from Tea

Eventually, I started really getting better and the doctors asked my to start putting weight on the burnt leg again so that the skin would learn to stretch properly.

After another week, I returned to the lab and I could walk short distances. I had trouble walking for too long and would often need to sit down after a while. I also had to wear a compression bandage for the next 4 months.

I was happy to have lived through it and started to realise some nice things about the odd hospitals they have in China. They are very casual and very to-the-point. They do not waste too much time on paperwork and medicine and treatment is generally very, very cheap.

As I had spent the previous three weeks not walking and essentially lying in bed, I have a few photos of my typical days' viewing. The ceiling, my desk, a wall…

I was very excited when I had skin on my leg again, and even more so when I could actually start walking.

Graduation

While I was immobile with a missing leg, the fourth years graduated. This meant that many of the people I had worked with during the semester were no longer students at ZJU, although a few of them stuck around to do a masters degree.

As I was incapable of walking, I missed out on the graduation party and graduation exhibition. They did sent me photos though.

This is the head of the former Creative Group I worked in at the beginning of my stay. Here he is demoing his graduation project which went on to become his job at a company that liked the design.

Actually Finding a Burns Hospital

A week and 3 days after my burn, one of my classmates, Blake, offered to accompany me to the hospital. He got a taxi to come to the back door of the dorm although they are not usually allowed inside the university, I hopped down the stairs and into the cab and we set off. As we pulled out of the university the driver asked where we were to go. I said the name of the hospital from the day before - the one with the microwave for human flesh - but Blake thought that was not a good idea. He then talked with the driver about which other hospitals were okay. There was a burns specific hospital however it was a long way away. In the end the driver said he would take us there anyway.

Eventually we arrived and I was seen rather quickly. They were shocked at the prior treatment and said that it had been treated as a much smaller, less serious burn and that I would need a skin graft. They then debrided the wound, which includes removing all the dead skin and flesh - in this case, skin and flesh that had started to heal incorrectly. This hurt quite a lot. They then washed my wound and dressed it. Again the pain had changed and become more evident so I was a lot more on edge. When everything was done I hopped out to wait for a taxi back home.

I returned two days later. They opened the wrapping and started to wash the wound as before. This time, however, after washing it the first time, they poured alcohol over it to ensure it would not get infected. There was no warning and it was quite painful, perhaps the most painful part of the whole experience. After that they rewrapped it and we talked about healing times. They expected it to take a while - 5 weeks to a few months without a skin graft and only 2 or 3 weeks with a graft.

My parents were still worried about this whole thing and to add to the confusion they were travelling separately in different parts of the world so communications were poor. They were trying to find out if someone could give us an idea of whether I needed a graft or not and how it should be dealt with generally. Our doctor friends in the States and Australia agreed that it was being dealt with well and that it would probably heal without a graft although a graft would speed things up. They thought if they were treating it they would not graft because there were still visible hair follicles in the photos I had sent. This meant the skin had somewhere to start growing from.

I went back to the hospital every two days for a few weeks eventually to find that it was improving rather well so the doctors said I did need not a skin graft. I was, however, still not walking and was hopping everywhere instead. In China they do not give you crutches or wheelchairs unless you really need them. The burns hospital was filled with patients who were hopping around because they had burnt part of their legs or feet.

Because the hospital I was going to now was more burns-oriented, there were more burn victims and everytime I went, I would see young and old with burns more serious than mine. It was also surprising to see that, on ocassion, a woman with child who had been scalded all over and was screaming continously would be ignored and made to wait until the doctor had free time, even if he wasn't dealing with anything particularly urgent at the time.

This is a small library of images from my legs recovery

Spilt Tea

Finding a Burns Hospital

The day after being burnt, I returned to the school hospital. This time, I was just accompanied by a western friend who could only speak some Chinese. This did not turn out to be a problem and the nurse redressed my wound. The next day, I was to redress the wound myself as that part of the hospital would be shut so she gave me the appropriate materials. This also went to plan. The following day, Monday, I returned to the hospital and the same procedure whet forth. At the time she expected me to be healed in about 2 weeks. A few days went passed following the same pattern. On the Thursday of that week however she scowled at my gamy leg and sent me to see a doctor who said I had an infection and that I would need antibiotics. They then redressed my wound and gave me a prescription to take to the drip room, a room full of sick people connected to drips hanging from metal hooks in the ceiling. It went on like this for a few days.

In the meantime, I was not going to the lab as I could not concentrate very well and I was still shaking from the shock. I was eating okay and have a few friends who were eager to take care of me while I was less inclined to walk. To avoid staying in my room all the time I went to a few relaxed places around Hangzhou and went on my first boat ride there. I was so ill at the time that I spent most of the trip sleeping or at least in an immobile state.

After 3 days of penicillin, I decided it might be a good idea to search for a English speaking doctor at a different local hospital. This proved an interesting effort because although when I arrived at the hospital I was was seen to immediately ahead of the other 20 or so people waiting for attention, I was not led to see someone who actually spoke English. Instead I was taken to a doctor experienced in another area who could speak about 10 words of English. He said that the previous hospital had been using a drug that was too weak and gave me a stronger antibiotic. He also prescribed something he called microwave treatment. This involved placing something like a griller near my leg. It then made my leg feel really hot as though it was re-burning it. I think to some degree this is what it was doing but I think the object of the device was to dry the wound. As well as this I was asked to stop walking on that foot. So the hopping began. At any rate it hurt quite a lot and that evening I called people from the lab to ask if they could accompany me the next day to ensure we were all on the same page.

At the same time I had told my parents and started they had contacted a few doctor friends. I had sent a few pictures home and they had been comparing notes. No-one seemed to know anything about this microwave thing but they said medicine in China was older than the most western medicine so perhaps it was quite an effective method. I also heard from the supervisor of one of my friends from UTS that when she she scalded her foot in China a few years ago, she was also given this microwave treatment.