Innovation School Product Design

Aidan Fraser (-)

Contact
aidan_fraser@outlook.com
a.fraser1@student.gsa.ac.uk
Projects
Future Experiences – Home Microbe Testing Kit
Self Initiated – Social and Cultural Integration Cards

Future Experiences – Home Microbe Testing Kit

The entry point leading to where the project sits now came from researching technologies that could exist within our future world (exhibit). The family that we had modelled were interested in keeping up to date with global health news and having a concern over the health of themselves, their home, wider community and further afield. Over the course of the COVID 19 pandemic with the years that were lost and the control over our own lives and decision making taken away from us lead me to exploring ways in which a sense of control could be gained back into our lives. Originally, before developments that were made to the project in semester two, there was a community role element to the project where there were employment opportunities that could help to facilitate more control over the diseases, infections and illnesses that can be found from community to community. However, I felt as though that this still didn’t gain people enough personal control and that is why I opted for the proposal to be delivered in a kit form (much like the COVID 19 LFT kits) and this allowing community members to keep track, manage and upload their data on their own. With predictions and trends looking like there is potential for pandemic level illnesses and diseases to become more and more common in the next 10-15 years, this level of control and illness mapping could potentially catch the issues before they spiral out of control.

Home testing kits are handed out to community members (one per household) with a similar purpose and delivery as covid LFT kits. However, this kit is not single use. Due to future technology development that is available in 2031, these kits are able to test and trace a wider variety of infections, illness, diseases and bacteria. When the household has been tested, which should be done on a regular basis, the information/data will then be loaded to a main network, like how LFT results are registered. This will then allow for local and global infection mapping to be created. This will then allow for any issues to be flagged and caught sooner and managed more efficiently and effectively. This affords people to gain a more control over their own health and illness management. Adding a preventative measure before illnesses spread which should then stop issues such as covid 19 lockdowns happening again.

It will also allow for people to become better educated on microbe and disease health. Learning more about what is dangerous or a threat, what isn’t so serious as well as how to maintain a healthier and cleaner person and home. Having an output like digital disease mapping will also be able to show community members directly the severity and the speed at which disease and illness can spread as well as what their own contribution to society is.

Self Initiated – Social and Cultural Integration Cards

This project looks at enhancing the integration experience of arriving refugee and asylum seeker children into classroom environments. Upon arrival many come with very basic, if any, literacy skills or local language skills as well as not knowing anything about the local culture and having trouble with confidence due to the journey that they have been on. By receiving these culture and social integration and interaction cards when they are dispersed into their new school environment allows them to interact and begin discussing with their peers and start to form bonds. Being paired with a local child will allow them to have a “buddy” that they can begin to bounce off of and learn from in a reciporacal manner. And by having an overseer in the form of a classroom culture facilitator, this will ensure that each child is supported fully during the integration process. The cards shown, as well as the narrative set in the beginning of the video, are given the narrative direction of a Ukrainian. However, these card packs would be made available in whatever language is required whether that be; Kurdish, Arabic, Spanish. With there being well over 50 languages spoken within Glasgow schools there is a need here to facilitate better communication links between young children.