Rio Mair

• Course: BDes (Hons) Product Design
• Email: riomair01@gmail.com

Title of Piece: Homeless Hygiene Pod (Hy-Pod)

Statement:

For my final year project, I decided to design a Homeless Hygiene Pod which would allow the homeless to carry out their hygiene practices in a private and sanitary environment.

The concept behind the Hy-Pod was that the general public would be able to make a donation through an application on their mobile phone to the homeless service who would then distribute the donations electronically to the homeless allowing them to purchase the hygiene products needed to carry out their hygiene practices from a vending machine situated within the exterior wall of the front panel of the pod. Both male and female sanitary products would be dispensed from the machine.

In the future I would like to find a job within the design industry, preferably something I enjoy such as RC cars and trucks and designing children’s toys. Alongside this I will be doing my masters to gain a deeper understanding of the design process and to gain a better understanding of materials and manufacturing processes when designing and manufacturing products.

My Experience:

My most enjoyable experiences on the course were all the trips we went on from London and Paris to France Germany and Milan.

I also really enjoyed my work placement in the summer of 2019 when I went to Prague (Czech Republic) to work for Prusa Research. This helped me gain a much better understanding of rapid prototyping using 3D printing and allowed me to gain a better understanding of the Czech culture and country itself.

My most favourite experience was winning the 2017 Estia 24Hr Challenge where I was part of a design team who designed a kitchen utensil for one handed people called the ‘Chop Box’.