Last week I graduated from Product Design at The University of Dundee. I would like to say that I have celebrated this by taking a holiday and chilling out but instead I have been keeping myself as busy as possible. I think design working/thinking is something that you can easily slip out of focus with unless you keep busy. I know myself that previous summer’s have been spent without much design consideration so bearing that I mind its been a pretty full on June!
As the academic year drew to a close towards the end of May, The University of Dundee Product Design Research studio moved into fresh surroundings at the Dundee Contemporary Arts centre and rebranded itself under the slightly catchier title of The Small Society Lab. This is a play on PM David Cameron’s ongoing Big Society plans and is all about engaging local communities with digital technologies, design thinking and social innovation. As part of that, Jon Rogers (Product Design course director), asked if we could put together a form of pop-up science centre featuring the work of myself and my classmates as exhibitions for the public. Thinking that this sounded great, I decided to go ahead and get it sorted along with assistance from those who exhibited.
The day was great. A bit slow to start but we had a mad rush of kids at 4pm once the schools had closed for the day! There were exhibitors from product design and illustration demonstrating their projects which had a focus on science and/or social engagement. There were also workshops for children (and grown-up children) to get hands on with science though building robots, launching rockets, exploring quantum physics and printing 3D models. Expectantly, the place was an absolute mess once the last of the kids had gone home – brilliant!
Project entry here
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Blog post on poster design here
Exhibitors:
Tim Pryde / DON-8r demonstration and Robot Building workshop
Patrick Stevenson-Keating / Quantum Parallelograph demonstration and Parallel Worlds workshop
Chris McNicholl / Tweeting Seat demonstration
Kathryn McCann / Rocket Science Workshop
Jamie Thoms / D.N.A Stamper demonstration
Jack Chalkley / Timeline Tools demonstration
Gavin Rutherford / Space Exploration illustrations
Michail Vanis / Makerbot demonstration and 3D Printing workshop
Thanks to Jon Rogers and The Small Society Lab for sponsoring equipment and supplies!