The power of wind

Why Helix Works
Inexpensive, reliable, simple, the hallmarks of the Helix system make it the best choice for low wind speed residential and commercial applications. The Savonius turbine based design catches wind from all directions creating smooth powerful torque to spin the electric generator. Mounted up to 35 feet high, in winds as low as 10 mph the Helix system creates electricity to power your home or business.

How it works: As the wind blows the long helical blade scoops catch wind from all directions forcing it through the turbine. The turbine generator is connected directly to your home and as electricity is generated your home is powered. If the wind isn’t blowing your home is powered by the energy grid as usual. If the wind is blowing strongly then your energy produced can exceed your energy consumed and, depending on your local utility, your meter can spin backwards rolling back your energy bill.

read more: www.helixwind.com

Zukarra

Started in 2003, Zukarra has always been about ensuring that customers receive the solution that best suited their need. Back then redefining design, as the name means, was our vision, now it is our essence!

Mike McElwee started the business with an attitude of 'anything goes'. Industrial Design student by day, business entreprenuer every other waking minute. Custom furniture, handyman/house-sitter, and exercise routines were the products of the time.

In February 2005 the business become strictly after hours as Mike took up the position of Head of Design at a start-up business, later to be named Xanita, manufacturers of value added kraft based composite boards. Xanita are fundamentally geared to providing environmentally friendly, printable, lightweight board products. It was here that he was reunited with his childhood passion of looking after the enviroment. Two intensive years later, after working with some of South Africa's top business leaders and industry professionals, Mike broke away to take on Zukarra full time.

A passion for the enviroment along with the knowledge and relationships gained at Xanita paved the way to where Zukarra is today. A business driven by a passion to provide eco-friendly and sustainable solutions.

"We did not inherit the world from our ancestors, we are borrowing it from our children."

2008 sees two new brands forming under the Zukarra name to compliment Design Solutions started in March 2007. Renova is the logical next step to the experience gained in the handyman industry, helping people create homes worthy of the glossy magazine pages the eco-friendly way. Stock is aimed at providing corporate branding & promotional solutions with an eco twist.

We hope that soon you too will form part of our future! Contact us now, and lets get started!

Australia coming last on climate

AUSTRALIA ranks last among wealthy countries in being ready to compete in a clean energy future or play its part in a strong climate treaty, an international report has found.

While the debate in Canberra focuses on whether to pass climate change legislation this year, the analysis by London-based consultants Vivid Economics suggests Australia is already being left behind.

Among G20 nations, Australia is ranked 15th for its readiness to maintain its wealth as the world introduces a price on carbon dioxide emissions.

Only developing nations South Africa, India, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia fare worse.

Australia's poor standing is blamed on its reliance on greenhouse-intensive exports, cars and coal-based electricity.

In terms of being ready to play its part under a pact to limit warming to 2 degrees, it slips down the list to 16th.

''The largest turnarounds in carbon productivity are required by Australia, Turkey, Russia and Saudi Arabia,'' the report says.

''The longer these countries take to achieve these turnarounds, the more costly the eventual transition will be.''

read more: http://www.theage.com.au/environment/australia-coming-last-on-climate-20090913-fm7a.html

How to find an ID job

As an employer we have been frustrated with the poor applications that we have received recently. Here are some of the most major errors we're seeing:

1.Poor grammar, lack of capitalization, typos, poor spelling, and no indication of which job they are applying to. Even if English is your second language, use spell check and grammar check! Ask friends to look things over. Craftsmanship is key.

2.Individual jpgs sent as samples. There is no way we are opening 10 attachments, period. Sorry. You've been rejected. Next!

3.Calling when the ad says no calls - this is a variation of the less common but more annoying version of the, "I'm just stopping by, can you see me now?"

4.No sketches or background material in your portfolio.

5.Not following pretty basic instructions in job wanted ad on how to apply

Here are the ingredients to a great application: Cover letter, Resume, and Samples
Cover Letter - research the company and write a personalized letter. This can be the email that you attach your resume and samples to. Please tell me in this letter which job you are applying to - DUH! I don't care why you want to move to my city (I don't care that your girlfriend live here) but I do care about why you think you are right for my company.

Resume: Please keep this to one page unless you have tons of experience. Sponsored studios don't count as experience, sorry. Include a graduation date. My last post was for a true junior designer. I had juniors trying to appear as if they had 3 or more years of experience. I disqualified those people. Too bad. Be honest.

Samples could be a teaser or a complete portfolio:

Teaser: 1 project with support work or 3-4 projects in final form

Complete portfolio: Should consist of 3-4 projects (minimum 3) from start to finish. You should document your thinking and decision making process from start to finish. We are looking for how much exploration and research you did, mechanical ability, aesthetics, and sensitivity to the user. We want to see the bad ideas you rejected as well as the really crazy ideas your instructor thought were too blue sky. We also want to see your mock ups. We are looking for your visual communication skills - this means sketching. If you can't sketch, it's still better to include your thinking than to not include it.

This is a forum discussion with people in the industry, PEOPLE who interview...

see more: http//boards.core77.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=19771

Thanks AB

When you have a spare four hours....

Essential watching for all designers is the BBC production The Century of Self. It asks deeper questions about the roots and methods of modern consumerism, representative democracy and its implications. It also questions the modern way we see ourselves, the attitude to fashion and superficiality.

see more: http://quicksilverscreen.com/

Papton Chair by Fuchs+Funke

Simple as a paper plane:
A few foldings transform a composite panel into a real lightweight chair of 2kgs only.
A couple of polygons create a clear, graphic unity.

ADU

Creative Entrepreneur is the heart of ADU where they offer you access to free business tools and structured advice. The web link is divided into Business News, Getting Started, Managing your Business, and the tools you need to build and carry on your practice across Contracts and Intellectual Property, Going to Market, Finances, and Marketing your Business.

Business News is updated monthly from a wide range of local and international sources, including The Wall Street Journal, Australian Anthill, Flying Solo, The New York Times, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. Articles focusing on creative businesses cover the ins and outs of running things creatively across both design development and business building.

Getting Started and Managing your Business look at the approach you need to take to balancing the business of design. Written by Stefan Kahn, Founder and Creative Director of Compact Desk, this section offers experience and advice on being a creative entrepreneur, backed up by the tools you need for running your business – sample contracts, agreements, legal terms and checklists developed through the Springboard project. These downloadable documents are essential for understanding, building and managing your business.

see more: http://www.australiandesignunit.com/index.php/design/tool-kit/

Xanita

Masdar City Centre by LAVA

Laboratory for Visionary Architecture (LAVA) have won a competition to design the urban centre of Masdar, a zero-carbon, zero-waste city to be built in the desert near Abu Dhabi.

read more: l-a-v-a.blogspot.com

Read between the lines

Last week a visiting Audi board member for sales and marketing, Peter Schwarzenbauer, said that, while design will also be the number one criteria for car buyers, environmental performance was crucial.

“This issue of having environmentally friendly engines will be a ticket to get on the shopping list,” says Schwarzenbauer.

Water water every where...

plastic fantastic!

Paper Tiger Products

Paper Tiger Products by Australian designer Anthony Dann are idiosyncratic structures, furniture and lighting inspired by folded forms and seamless construction.

Paper Tiger Products are flat-packs which transport efficiently and snap together quickly and easily. Taking advantage of the deceptive strength of triangular folding, the designs are engineered to withstand all the rigors of heavy use.

www.papertigerproducts.com

Fold school

While I don’t really expect everyone wants a house full of cardboard furniture, there is a certain appeal to creating furniture out of something that is otherwise thrown away or recycled. Foldschool is a website that offers up a collection of patterns for folded cardboard furniture. The templates are all free, all you need is printer to be able to print out the template. It seems that the furniture is specifically designed around kids, and each template has the age that it would be appropriate for.

http://www.foldschool.com/_about/about_start/about_start.html

Better Place

Better Place is an initiative aimed at bringing about an increase in the global use of electrical cars.
From a sustainability viewpoint I believe this to be a positive step as it opens up the potential for more of our transport to be powered by renewable energy sources and also decreases society's dependence on Petrol.
There is a flaw to this scheme though, which lies in the batteries they intend to use.
Lithium ion batteries have been selected as the most appropriate battery for this purpose as a result of their high energy density and cycle life. The key material present in these batteries, however - Lithium - is far from sustainable. Just as peak oil looms ahead so does peak Lithium - Mitsubishi estimate that the demand for Lithium will overtake availability within 10 years unless more sources are found. ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7707847.stm )
But simple availability is not the only thing that will limit the accessibility of Lithium. 50% of the world's known Lithium store resides in Bolivia, a country whose tight political control over the resource is greatly limiting its ability to be processed and made globally available.
While electric vehicles are indeed necessary to overcome the oil crisis, becoming just as dependent on Lithium would be very unwise. Exploring other battery technologies where more widely available materials are utilised, such as the Zinc Air battery may make this a more sustainably viable initiative.

Thanks ZA

How to innovate!

This step-by-step method helps you invent new products or services using templates. Templates channel your creative thinking so you can innovate in a completely new way. It is not brainstorming. It is a structured process to focus your creative output.

The way it works is by creating a hypothetical solution first, and then imagining a problem that it solves. This is exactly opposite of the traditional way people invent. Usually, we start with a problem, then we try to invent solutions to it. That is not always effective because many times we do not know all the problems consumers have when using a product or service. When reverse the direction (SOLUTION-TO-PROBLEM), we uncover many new useful problems worth solving, and we have an innovative solution to apply to it. It's cool! And it works!

Follow these steps:

1. Select a product or service to innovate.

2. Create a list of its components.

3. Apply a TEMPLATE to each component. This creates a VIRTUAL PRODUCT. It is virtual because it does not exist. It should not seem to make any sense to you at first. That is okay...that is how the method works.

4. Take the VIRTUAL PRODUCT and think of all the ways it could be useful. What problems does it solve? What benefits does it offer? Who would use it?

5. Repeat the process using a different component.

6. Repeat the entire process using a different TEMPLATE.

Here are the TEMPLATES:

SUBTRACTION: removing an essential component and keeping only what is left
MULTIPLICATION: making a copy of a component but changing it in some way
DIVISION: dividing a component out of the product and putting it back somewhere else, OR taking the component and physically dividing it
TASK UNIFICATION: assigning an additional task to an existing component - giving it a new job in addition to its existing job
find more examples at:

http://www.innovationinpractice.com/innovation_in_practice/

Thanks AB

Roll the dice!

Thanks AR

$20m to go to rebranding Australia

TAXPAYERS will outlay $20 million over four years on a new brand to promote Australia, seeking a new logo and tagline to boost our image and trade in the world.
In a bid to rival the success of brands like ''100% Pure New Zealand'' and ''Malaysia Truly Asia'', the Rudd Government will run a public tender for advertising agencies to come up with a new Australian image.
It wants the new brand to replace the different logos used in tourism and trade - all of which feature kangaroos - with one consistent image.
Trade Minister Simon Crean will outline the plans in Melbourne today, arguing Australia needs to promote itself more actively with a more ''cohesive'' brand.
In a speech to the Trade 2020 conference, Mr Crean will argue that Australia should make more of its competitive advantage beyond the beauty of the landscape.
''Building Brand Australia has an unashamedly commercial focus which will help promote Australia as a great place to live, a great country in which to do business, and a great place to invest.''
Austrade will oversee the tender and the advertising over the next three years. About $3 million will be spent on developing the brand and tagline, with the balance to be spent over the following three years on advertising abroad.

Victorian Engineering Industry Week

Engineers Australia, Victoria Division is hosting Engineering Industry Week during September 21-25. This campaign will celebrate and promote the work of Victorian engineers through a variety of events and activities. FREE site visits & tours, inspiring seminars & lectures, demonstrations & competitions, networking functions & more...

engineer.omidesign.com/index_events.php?n_id=106

Thanks BR

Design matrix

Unveiling the beauty of statistics

Gapminder is a non-profit venture promoting sustainable global development and achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by increased use and understanding of statistics and other information about social, economic and environmental development at local, national and global levels.

A modern “museum” that helps making the world understandable, using the Internet.



find out more: - www.gapminder.org/
Thanks AR

Engineering insanity!

All doubts were unfounded. The 35.2 meter distance jump was the first practical Softslide test with real humans under real conditions. I think words would fail even the last remaining skeptics at this point.

read more:-www.mach-es-machbar.de/english/das-projekt-megawoosh.php5

Thanks HT

What's on at the NGV

There is an exhibition called "Draw the Line: the Architecture of LAB". LAB is an architecture studio who won the 1997 competition to design what is now the Federation Square precinct. The exhibition shows a lot of conceptual sketching and mockup models made during the design process, and it makes you appreciate the design of the buildings much more when you see it. There are also a number of drawings and models of other projects the studio has worked on around the world, and most impressively there are a number of ~1:100 scale polystyrene models of the buildings at the back of the gallery. The exhibition is held on Level 3, in Galleries 15 and 16 - and best of all, it's free! The exhibit will be open until September 13.

Thanks BR

Green Box : Pizza box

Thanks JP

Brands

It was suggested that a brand is a persons gut feeling about a product, service or organization..

Understanding this, my interpretation of a successful brand is something that similarly feels right to you and that you feel suits your personality and characteristics, and you feel comfortable in trusting in and consuming depending on the product or service..

It may be styling that suits your current or desired style, or a reputation of quality and high performance that you feel suits your standards and needs at your level or the level you strive for..

Thanks JB

Out of the fire

ON THE night of Black Saturday, Kevin Rudd and Jenny Macklin were in constant contact with each other, anxiously monitoring the progress of the deadly infernos consuming Victoria's townships.

"A lot of big decisions had to be made then and there," says Macklin, the federal Minister for Families and Housing, who has described those critical hours in an interview with The Age.

"We knew that thousands of people had lost absolutely everything. We could see it was going to be a daunting task for families and individuals to pick up all the pieces of their lives. Kevin (Rudd), John (Brumby) and I were constantly talking to each other, working out how best to structure the relief fund and co-ordinate resources."

On Sunday, when the Prime Minister, the Premier and Macklin spoke with shocked and bewildered survivors at Kangaroo Ground and Whittlesea, the emergency strategy roughed out by phone the night before had been galvanised into a plan of action. Disaster relief was immediate, comprehensive and on a scale not seen since Christmas Day 1974 after Cyclone Tracy obliterated Darwin.

read more:- www.theage.com.au/national/out-of-the-fire-20090330-9h6k.html

Bottled Water Costs the Earth

The average bottle of water is much more than what it seems. It incurs a number of hidden and not so hidden costs. First, the direct cost to your wallet: Crude oil is mined from deep underground, transported half way round the world, refined into petrol for our cars, transported again under stringent safety precautions, taxed at over 50%, sold at a profit and is still, at $1.45 a litre, cheaper than Australia's top-selling litre of bottled water (FuelWatch, 2008). A litre of Mount Franklin will cost you a whopping $3.67 a litre [1]; more than double the cost of fuel.

read more:- theflipside.com.au/bottledwater

It's in the post!

The global convergence of computing and communications technology is driving us toward a new digital age. Due to this 'information revolution' in the next 30 to 40 years, every analog and physical process will become,in some manner, digitized, mobilized or virtualized... arc globalized. What does this mean to the postal industry?

read more:- http://nextgenerationventures.com/Download/PostTechReprint.pdf

Shai Agassi - Better Place

Where do people find jobs?

Finding a job can take months of time and effort. But you can speed the process by using many methods to find job openings. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggest that people who use many job search methods find jobs faster than people who use only one or two.

The Brand Gap

www.slideshare.net/coolstuff/the-brand-gap

The Opte Project

This Opte project was started by Barrett Lyon as a response to a conversation with his colleagues. Over a lunch they were discussing William Cheswick and Hal Burch's Internet Mapping Project. Barrett was inspired by their beautiful maps but they did not seem to be very useful nor do they release their code freely. Their mapping also was not much of a public affair, and there reports that the images took months to make. (According to Bill Cheswick, the Internet Mapping Project runs now with 20 minute daily scans and has a much improved image creation system.) His comment during the lunch was that, "I can write a program that can map the entire net in a single day." The comment was met with some hostility. Thus, this project was born.

Blogging

As part of semester two, Professional Attributes, you are expected to set up a web log (blog) that will be used as a part of a social media, discussion board and folio. This is intended to help encourage ‘thinking’ and the exploration of ideas related to this subject and specifically to the project “insideout09”.

Through the online environment you will also learn about peer review, the process of subjecting your work, research and ideas to the scrutiny of others. It is via this dynamic and engaging network that the parameters of the classroom can be vibrant and innovative.

As your blog will form part of your final semester folio and will be assessed, it is important that you develop this on a weekly basis. Responding to the challenges set in class will help contribute to a greater body of knowledge.

Each week the set project will appear on the class blog, feel free to make appropriate comments that may help further the class room discussion. All work will be presented as discussion groups using the room IT facilities, you are expected to be ready to participate at the begining of each class.

Getting started
Visit www.blogger.com and follow the step by step tour. Select one of the ‘minima’ templates. Make sure you use your full name, or an appropriate alias to name your blog. Finally email your blog link to insideoutPDE09@gmail.com making sure to include your student name and number by the begining of next class.

Once you have set up your blog, you will be using this for folio development along with the esquisses which will be uploaded, make sure to get stated as soon as possible.

PDE class of 09

Andrew Bui
darkdayzbui.blogspot.com/

Brendan Rosevear
attentiontodesign.blogspot.com/

Jacki Downing
jackidowningpde09.blogspot.com/

Daniel Prusac
danielprusac.blogspot.com

Swithin Oliver
swithin11.blogspot.com/

Rachit Vora
rachitvora.blogspot.com/

james boubouka
jbpde09.blogspot.com

Jason Pickering
jasonpickeringdesignengineer.blogspot.com/

Alexandra Gray
alexgraydesign.blogspot.com/

Sarah Richardson
sarahrichardsonpde09.blogspot.com/

Zeina Assouad
zeinaassouad.blogspot.com/

Frankie Ngan
frankiengan.blogspot.com

Michelle Rosevear
michellerosevear.blogspot.com

Chris Hart
chart86.blogspot.com

Luke Dewar
lpdewar.blogspot.com

abbey reynolds
abbeyreynolds.blogspot.com/

Neil Strohbeck
neilstrohbeck.blogspot.com/

Craig Artemiou
craigsdesign.blogspot.com/

Matthew Keen
keenmatt.blogspot.com/

Alexander Knorr
http://alexanderknorr.blogspot.com/