Ryan's thermal blanket

Julia's life ring

Fanru Wang's life ring

Shan shan's water tank

comments

Steve Mesa
and his cool kinetic generator

This is the physical model I made it's half scale. It is essentially a working model as well.

the valves to fill the "floating" walls with expanding PolyUrethane foam or air.

this shows how the actual product is assembled/ pulled apart

Bangladesh Cyclones

Problem: Bangladesh is situated in the Ganges delta and most of the country is less than 1m above sea level therefore in the event of heavy rain (i.e cyclones) the country is prone to heavy flooding.
Over half the population of Bangladesh live below the poverty line, they live in tin and bamboo shanties and the majority are either fishermen or rice farmers.
In the event of a cyclone most lose their homes and have to rebuild, most boats are destroyed. With water levels rising up to 6m the people are forced to wade through diseased water until it subsides this can cause illness (especially to children) and spoils food like rice(the main sometimes only food source)

Solution: The Mud Skipper is a one-man fabric barrow, which doubles as a raft. It is easily transported and assembled then distributed by aid agencies. It is designed to hold one adult male and some supplies ie. a 20kg bag of rice. The inflatable walls allow it to hold 171kg of weight and still float. Due to the design of the weight being inside and below the float the weight also helps with buoyancy.
The mudskipper is designed as a cheap means to assist with transporting people/ supplies around the flooded area and then to help with the recovery and rebuilding.
All parts except the bag and wheel are pre manufactured parts to reduce time and expenses. The design uses minimal parts for the same reason, when trying to distributed aid a product needs to be as basic and functional as possible.

REFLECTION
First let me say I am doing Bangladesh in cyclones. My experience of this project was that it is obviously very hard to make something that will logistically work in third world situations due mainly to the lack of funds. At first I wanted to make something that would help shelter people from flying debris and the winds but in the end what I found that the Bangladeshis really need is concrete to build more appropriate housing. Another point to note was that the relief efforts in Bangladesh aren’t much more than aid distribution, the government doesn’t seem to care too much about the poor, and the people are left to rebuild their housing. This is when I got the idea to make a wheelbarrow/cart that could float. I wanted to make a stacking roto moulded shell that would serve as a dinghy and cart but I was told by the tutor it would be too large and expensive, this is of course the problem I mentioned before no one has money for things to give to the third world. The Idea was then a blow up boat style hybrid, I wasn’t that happy about it as it lost some structural stability but thems the breaks. I made a folding model so that the barrow doubled in size when in raft mode so that it could be used by one person when a barrow but fit 3 as a boat but it was deemed too complicated so that is how I ended up with a permanent floating wheelbarrow, I think the fact that it is pared back to a quite basic idea is good as it will be cheaper to make and easier to assemble.
Looking back I think I needed to talk more to the tutors earlier and also be more firm with my idea for my product as that is what gives you a well thought out cohesive solution rather than a blend of ideas. I am not entirely happy with my final design for those reasons. In making the model I found it is hard to source pvc coated nylon and had to resort to a waterproof sheeting instead.
I enjoyed the project but think I could have done it a lot better if I stuck with my original idea for the boat/cart.