• Question: Have you ever built or designed something that is used in day to day life?

    Asked by neilaandkitty to Al, Emma, Ivanka, James, Omar on 16 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: James Vokes

      James Vokes answered on 15 Mar 2012:

      Unfortunately not. The company I work for helps banks who want to transfer money (BACs if you want to look it up) authenticate their users but I wasn’t involved in that 🙁

    • Photo: Omar Mustufvi

      Omar Mustufvi answered on 15 Mar 2012:

      In a group project when I was at university I designed a product which would help elderly people open juice cartons- it looked like a ‘winged nut’ which fit onto the cap and would provide extra grip and force for someone to take the cap off easily. We did a lot of research into what elderly people find difficult in the kitchen and this was the idea we came up with, after designing on paper and then on the computer we had a prototype made which actually looked pretty good. At the end of the project we had to present our design in a ‘dragons den’ style event and the judges included the head of product design for Marks and Spencers, and they thought our product was so good it could have been in the shops!

    • Photo: Al Bartlett

      Al Bartlett answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      Hello neilaandkitty,

      Unfortunately i’ve never designed anything that would be seen in everyday life. Between myself and some of the other engineers that I work with we have designed some equipment for the C17 that helps us to wash the engines.

      When an aircraft flys for long periods of time over the sea, they collect evaporated salt water from the atmosphere inside the engine – This salt water can be very bad for the engines as it is ‘Corrosive’ whic means that it can cause rust and other damage to the very complicated inside of the engine. We use the washing equipment to spray water though the middle of the engine to make sure all of the salt is washed away – The engine costs about £25million each so we have to look after them!

    • Photo: Ivanka Brown

      Ivanka Brown answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      I generally work on infrastructure projects, so there are plenty of things that I have designed that are now in use. This includes the electonic signs on the M4 and M23 motorways and the (now stable) embankments over which the London Underground Central line runs on the west of the line. I also designed an extension to a building and a set of steps leading to a park in Australia. I also designed ‘thrust blocks’ for pipes associated with a wastewater treatment plant. There are also some things that I have designed that have not yet been built. I did the detailed design for the walls of the entrance to Victoria Station’s new ticket hall that will be built over the next two years.

    • Photo: Emma Bould

      Emma Bould answered on 18 Mar 2012:

      I haven’t designed something that is used in everyday life, however I did used to work in a brewery which manufactured beer – that’s pretty every day life.

      My job was to make sure the equipment on the production line was working properly so we could meet the production demands (which in NZ go up a lot at Christmas time because it’s also summer BBQ season)

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